Here be Dragons
by FlyingWithoutWingsLove
Summary: With dreams of becoming a writer, Karen Bishop takes a job as a tabloid journalist in order to make ends meet. Revolted by the profession, Karen decides that a change is in order. But being an ethical reporter has left her sailing in uncharted waters as she investigates crimes with Will and Hannibal, and she can't help but to think that here, most certainly, be dragons. Hannibal/OC
1. Prologue

A young woman sealed her fate as she stood patiently in front of the reported crime scene in the woods, wringing her hands together as personified trepidation.

Her motives were set to her own discretion for not even the cops behind the yellow tape could ascertain what brought her here to this particular dark corner of the world. Naturally, they all had their presumptions, which they kept respectfully to themselves as they maintained a wary eye on her. If she were a reporter, as would suggest the tape recorder she continually fumbled with, she was unlike any they have ever encountered for she actually had the decency to appear apprehensive in the face of a crime.

The qualms that were captivated and seized within her mind remarkably added a shade of youth to her complexion as she appeared fretfully flustered from her own thoughts. And yet, the desirously rueful thoughts that plagued her mind with the sharpened edge of a blade continued to ambush her unexpectedly and take her by storm in a fashion no girl should know.

God, how she despised her job sometimes and all the horrid positions it put her though.

She mulled over her decision once again as she gingerly wavered from foot to foot, unsure of which one to rest her weight upon. She was such a timid thing of twenty-seven years and in all her time she has never perceived such ill conceived notions of defiance before. Well, besides that rebellious phase with her parents, and look where that has gotten her!

The earth shattering sound of approaching footsteps ripped apart all contemplation she previously held as she approached their owners in search of one in particular. They walked past her with ease, never sparing a second glance at her vaguely trembling frame. Her voice caught within her throat, and with a gentle nudge, it came flooding out.

"Mr. Graham, my name is Karen Bishop. I work for Tattle Crime." The words came pouring out of her mouth like an avalanche coming down a mountain, tumbling forth in the unruly nature of the young. They felt pungent in her mouth upon recognizing the air of tense hostility towards her name of business.

Will never spared her a glance of acknowledgment nor did he politely slow his gait. He continued to press forth with abnormally large strides, leaving Karen to construe his brisk pace to be a means of escape from her presence. She could scarcely blame the misunderstood man, nevertheless, Karen persistently followed.

"He's not interested," a brusque response from even a curter man than Karen could fathom left her momentarily frozen in mid-step from its vile authoritarian tone. An air of arrogance surrounded the rather stout man as he assumed to own each space he occupied. Karen presumed him to be in charge for the level of his conceit was only matched by his domineering nature as he barked his orders at his subordinates. "And you would be wise to leave now." Despite the whisper of the warning, the special agent's voice bellowed and rang within her ears as the low foreboding rolls of thunder.

Karen never thought of herself to be that wise. If she were, then she would surely have had an entirely different matter of approaching the subject. Nevertheless, what Karen lacked in wit, she made up for in stubborn tenacity, a trait she never recalled receiving from either parent. "Please, Mr. Graham," She slowed her tone to a composed and steady beat in an attempt to project the fabricated authority the direness of the situation presented her with. "If I could only have a moment of your time, I would like to set the – "

Will took it upon himself to interject this time, already growing weary of these reporter games. He was sure an air of deception hung upon them as they did for all tabloid journalists. Vultures, the likes of them! "I don't do interviews," came the flat response from the man who continuously refused to look into her eyes.

He made to carry on his departure – left foot already positioned in front of the right – but then a wild stag of a thought occurred to him, rampaging throughout his mind as it often does. And in that delusional moment he knew the only way to be rid of the beast was to become it. Decisively, he pivoted on his foot as a scoff caught within the back of his throat, an ode to the bitter remembrance of the first reporter who took an interest in him. "Then again, that did little to stop your other reporter." His words were callous, the sting of which forced Karen's gaze to drop in a sorrowful recognition.

"Not every journalist builds their name out of fear." She meekly reminded him, only half believing in the phrase herself. Throughout the past year she had managed to convince herself that she was something of a dying breed by repeating the words relentlessly to herself. Now intuition told her that it would take more than eloquent words to convince the behavioral expert that she was more than her trembling frame and diligent tenacity.

"Wise words, Miss. Bishop," by the malice they were fashioned from, Karen knew an insult were to follow. Nevertheless, she held hope that recognition of her cause would be benevolently determined. She was wrong. "But working for a tabloid doesn't make you a journalist," he concluded with a tone of such spite, the likes of which Karen feared would never waver.

"All I'm asking for is a chance at an interview to prove it to you. I can clear your name!" she added hastily, fishing for anything that would unclench his fists and force him to listen. Realizing too late that she had crafted the wrong message, she could only stand as witness to the permutation of a prideful resentment and throbbing ache that rippled across Will's frame from her hastened words. It all collected upon his brow where it rested as the deep lines of frustration.

This time he granted her a glimpse into his essence as he fixed his gaze upon her, and in a bitter moment of being caught in memories past, she had wished he hadn't. The anguish trapped within them seemed to cry out in a voice only she could hear as it fell upon her ears like the scornful taunts of past persecutors. They all seemed to cry out in snide remarks that they would never be what is in their hearts.

She never anticipated it to happen, but she caught a glimpse of herself in his eyes; and she could tell by the way his gaze lingered that he saw it too.

Recognizing the alarm within her eyes to be his own, his voice dropped to a flat tone void of expression. It was with the slightest intrigue that he found he no longer possessed the energy by which to contain such trifling emotions. "You're wasting your time, Mrs. Bishop. I've already told you that I don't do interviews." And with that, he continued his pace as an act of dismissing this little tête-à-tête by adding distance between him and what he hoped would soon be a memory to forget.

Karen made to follow, with a response caught somewhere between a plea and a protest hanging loosely upon her lips, when an abrupt hand of an officer stuck out. It ceased all movement, and by extension the continuation of their debate, as it refused to permit her entrance to the crime scene. She knew the game to be ending and in one final move, she desperately laid down all her cards.

"I can help you take down Freddie Lounds."

With all eyes rather uncomfortably upon her, Karen realized she had stumbled into the right words. _Well_, she thought with a dash of impatience, _that seemed to get their attention_.


	2. Chapter One

In special agent Jack Crawford's experience, when something seemed too good to be true, it was always best to interrogate it. Holding firm upon his little insight into the chaos of the world, Jack paced slowly back and forth across the span of his desk, transfixed into a lion circling his prey by the gravity of the situation. What filled his line of vision was a meager attempt at a reporter as she sat vaguely trembling in his wake. With an unrelenting scrutiny, Jack observed the reasonably attractive young woman who appeared to be nothing more than a pair of verdant eyes that were widening with each of his decisive steps.

The man frightened her in the most remarkable way that Karen was sure she would let slip from her tongue anything that she was hiding. That is, if she truly was withholding anything of consequence, which she had to keep reassuring herself that she wasn't. Despite the legitimacy behind her intent, her trembling knees would have suggested otherwise.

His gaze was what she would remember and later depict him by. It was the way it personified his intense concentration, never faltering in the similar fashion of a disapproving parent's, that first caught her attention to the domineering man. It was as if he were attempting to see though Karen, and she quite disliked such a notion of transparency. Even when she turned away, she could still fell it upon her, reducing her into whatever he saw fit.

She refused to match his gaze, for every time she attempted to glance into them she was only met with a derisive wrath that added another shade of insipid porcelain to her visage. Instead, she permitted her eyes to linger about his desk – the only safe place in the lion's den – as she scanned the many marvels and mysteries that were the trinkets to Jack's personal life.

To his right stood a silent and slightly perturbed Will, who seemed to hold even less interest within his awkward frame than what he started with. On his visage held an expression that suggested he was miles away from here, tangled within the vile contempt he held for the people that surrounded him. Karen too found herself wishing to be far away.

Jack finally ceased his pacing with one fluid motion of resting the entirety of his stout frame into his chair. The cry it made in objection only seemed to add to his growing frustrations, making Karen wary of how it might impact his conduct towards her. Yet, judging by the fluidity of the movement, Karen presumed it to be just as natural to him as breathing.

"Help me to understand, Miss. Bishop," his words sliced the silence within the room with a tone of a calculated control that intimidated any and all defiance in its presence. "Who is Ms. Lounds to you?"

"She is my boss." Karen replied meekly, peculiarly grateful for commencing with such a simple question. However, judging by the arch in special agent Crawford's brow, Karen presumed the worst to be vastly approaching and she feared she was scarcely prepared for it.

"And why would you be willing to help us 'take her down' as you so put it?" His voice was velvet with a subtle sharpens to as it was crafted by his overbearing nature.

He appeared composed and collected despite the riled interrogation; a demeanor that appeared to frighten Karen for it seemed peculiarly aberrant of his nature. If anything, she had expected the special agent to shout vile remarks and obscenities at her like in the movies she had wasted her adolescence upon. With slight sorrow, Karen begrudgingly found validity in her parent's arguments of being unable to trust everything seen on television.

"She's obviously not that good of a boss."

Karen knew she had overstepped with her wit when she heard a low grumble coming from special agent Jack Crawford, an audible sign of his censure that suggested such fine humor would be wasted upon him. She decided it would be in both of their best interests to rephrase her response, and thus she started again in the most professional, compose manner that her twenty-seven years would permit. "Freddie Lounds has misconstrued testimonies, tampered with crime scenes, obtained information under false pretenses, and not to mention she has gotten several people fired for her sloppy journalism. She has destroyed people's lives all to promote her name and increase readers. In the tabloid industry we are told that fear, even misguided, will sell, and Ms. Lounds does not shy away from this method."

By the way she appeared dethatched from her words, Will presumed her to have rehearsed this dialogue several times before hand. He granted himself the guilty pleasure in wondering if it sounded better in her head than out loud.

"And you would have me believe that you don't practice such a method." Will interjected with a tone that was slowly accumulating its fair share of contempt. Karen could have traced the cynicism within his eyes and the way it dripped from its corners to flow across his face in the ripples of skepticism if he would have permitted her to.

"I don't." She could only offer in the humblest of tones, regretfully knowing it to not be enough to appease the behavioral analysts before her.

Will scoffed; a deep seeded laugh that caught within his throat from his scorn. "How ideal of you to believe that Miss. Bishop, but in the real world there is no such thing as an ethical tabloid journalist. You vultures are all the same."

His words stung her just as before with the rancor only the mocked could possess, but slowly Karen had built her tolerance to it and continued to press forth with the same zealous tenacity of hers that never seemed to falter. "I'm not asking you to trust me without proof," she concluded hastily, her words jumbling slightly as they appeared to race forth from her mouth before her listless mind had an opportunity to grasp their indication.

"And how, pray tell, can you provide such a truth?" Jack leaned into his query by placing his hands firmly upon the sides of his desk, pushing forth as if to lunge forward at Karen with his rueful presumptions.

It all made the young reporter fell slightly overwhelmed as she slowly began to sink in her seat, a poor attempt to make herself appear unthreatening as if to not disturb the universe before her. And yet, she heard herself uttering the most defiant of questions. "Have you ever known a tabloid journalist to ask please?"

It was met by a pensive silence only momentarily before Will's interjection left Karen faintly numb. "Only when they want something." It was void of all humor as it jaggedly rested upon a callous truth. The scorn that captivated his eyes appeared to darken them with wisps of a clouded gray.

Playing off of Will's point, Jack felt the need to elaborate with a question of his own, one that has been pestering him since this little interrogation commenced. "How can we be certain that you are not under the thumb of Ms. Lounds?"

That appeared to rile the once timid reporter. With such a fractious glower, Karen was no longer the rabbit hearted woman they have grown accustomed to, for the mockery of her autonomy vexed her like none other.

"With all due respect, Mr. Crawford, don't insult my intelligence," her words fell from her lips in the liquid fabrication of authority, sending a chill even down her own spine. "I write about people who happen to commit crimes and not the crimes themselves. If you don't believe me, then check my ratings, they seem to reflect my decisions quite accurately."

Despite the astonishment that lightened the subtle mahogany undertones in his eyes, Jack held his ground in a manner that was expected of his years of experience. He merely entwined his fingers together before him to offer the perfect depiction of contemplation as he spoke in the distinguished tone of the domineering. "Please enlighten us, Miss. Bishop. What do they seem to reflect?"

As special agent Jack Crawford glared down at her from upon his throne of a discounted office chair, Karen could tell that he was a man who had grown accustomed to getting what he wanted. This presented a problem to Karen, for so was she.

"I have a grand total of twelve readers, Mr. Crawford. Not twelve thousand or even twelve hundred. Just twelve," she swallowed the words one by one as they seemed to scorch her tongue with their harsh validly. No longer having a need for the denial she was holding on to, she silently admitted her temporary defeat towards the animalistic nature of mankind that always seemed to flock towards the anguish of others. And yet, it did little to wane her resolved fighting spirit. "I know every journalist claims that they care about their readers, but the difference between me and them is that I actually do. The only way that I can express that to them – to everyone – is by reporting the truth as it is and not by the way we all wish it to be. . . Can't you see?" she inquired in a breathless whisper, wondering why none chose to believe her. "I want to be able to tell them that they are safe and actually mean it for once."

"And I suppose the title of lead reporter would look quite nice under your name once you got the police to handle Ms. Lounds for you." Jack mused, her previous clarification appearing to fall upon deaf ears as he continued to push all of Karen's buttons, even the ones she wasn't aware of possessing.

With a bitter resentment, Karen realized that she quite disliked law enforcement.

"You misunderstand. I'm not after a title," She replied at a great risk for her health as she noted the way her words seemed to engulf Jack in a tart abhorrence for being corrected, surfacing a remorseless terror deep within her.

"I-I want justice. I want to transform the title of t-tabloid journalist into something that we could look at with pride once more and not with today's derision. W-with your help, Mr. Graham, I would like to disprove Ms. Lounds's m-methods and probably the entirety of the vocation that believe sex and fear are the only tools needed to sell a story. I-I want to bring back real journalism: truthful and ethical journalism." Karen concluded with her gaze fixed upon her hands, searching for any remnants of valor that might have been left behind, for the mere presence of these analysts and their shrewd glances seemed to strip her completely of it. Despite her trembling frame muddling her words into stammers instead of the poised offer of confidence she had hoped them to be, her message appeared to briefly resonate within them with the tone of dreams long forsaken.

The naivety of her response left those before her momentarily dazed, and oddly nostalgic for the verdant youth they once possessed. She truly was an idealistic girl, the likes of which Jack and Will were highly unfamiliar with. If Karen thought she was in uncharted waters, then it could only pale in comparison to the expedition Jack and Will appeared to be on, the puerile likes of which enticed a string of misplaced mirth from their lips.

With such abhorrent shock, they laughed at her.

And not with the soft chuckles of the amused, but with the deep throated bellows of the thoroughly entertained. With bemused fantasies filling their heads, they half expected her to fall into a song complete with lyrics dedicated to her romanticized optimism. Even the courteous woman in the farthest corner of the room, who had made her presence unknown the entirety of the time as she psychoanalyzed the idealistic journalist, failed in her attempts to stifle her laughter.

Karen felt the burn of humiliation upon her cheeks and she was sure a glance in a mirror was unneeded to assure the crimson hue that was to certainly accompany the sensation. Feeling as if she were in every sense of the words "a foolish girl," she silently cursed herself for ever believing in something more than the unattainable dream. Her gaze fell upon the floor where it would remain for the night, staring longingly at the fabricated illusion of self-assurance she once wore to fool herself.

"With all due respect, Miss. Bishop," Jack mused as he whipped a jovial tear from his eye, his tone quickly loosing the humor it once held as he repeated her words back to her, "don't insult my intelligence. You think the bureau will roll over for you because of a fantasy you forgot to leave behind once you entered the real world? You must take us for some kind of fools to accept such a ludicrous offer from the same tabloid agency that has consistently tarnished my agents' reputations."

"I wasn't trying to –."

"I will not be made a mockery of in my own office!" Jack's words came rolling forth in the menacing air of thunder that seemed to ring with a certain finality to them.

"Jack," the woman in the back of the room gingerly interrupted. "You're scaring her."

Sparing a glance at her hands, Karen realized the psychiatrist's words to be true as she watched with disdain the way they trembled. But from fright or revulsion, Karen was no longer certain.

"No, it's okay. I understand. Ms. Lounds has a peculiar talent for bringing out the worst in people," her words trialed meekly and void of expression, appearing mechanical as they commented on the overbearing Jack and the trepid Will. "I realize that it's a lot to go on, but I assure you that I am not like her. I can be the solution if you want me to be." Karen winced slightly from her rather clichéd concluding argument. Indignantly she realized it bared a striking resemblance to another one of Ms. Lounds's lies. With a fretful alarm, Karen wondered if she truly was under her boss's thumb.

"I think she's telling the truth," Alana Bloom concluded after a moment's worth of contemplation, utterly shocking the girl into a state of silence. "What do you think Will?"

Will studied the young journalist before him in a way that made Karen feel bashfully exposed as he committed every line and angle of her to memory, inspecting for that one that didn't quite belong. When they weren't upon him, he examined her vast emerald eyes that seemed to pull forth the tides with crashing waves of desperation. He ignored their expressive pleads until at last he found it. Past the famished desire for recognition and a fresh beginning, past the throbbing ache of the misunderstood and the fuming ire that followed, it laid their beckoning to him as it caught the florescent lighting of the office, bending and reflecting it to craft a light that would guide him home. Against his better judgment, he saw trust within the tabloid journalist's eyes.

In a moment of such overwhelming sensation, for he never thought one person capable of containing such raw emotion, all he could do was merely nod his head in the slightest indication towards his approval.

"Congratulations, Miss Bishop. It seems you have your story." Jack confirmed with a final grunt that caused Karen's gaze to soar from their own revelation. Yet, the faintest trace of wary clouded them with notions of the threatened treachery that might follow.

Had she truly just won over her first clients? And the head of the behaviorist division no less?

Karen would have spared a moment to feel giddy if she weren't positively exhausted from the first interrogation of what Karen dreadfully thought in the air of the foreboding would be many. With a slight smile to mark the occasion, her mind rested upon a vague memory of a dogma her parents once said. Regretfully, she realized it to be correct that things never occur according to plan.


	3. Chapter Two

There were parts to the interviewing process that Karen Bishop always detested. The commencement of Will's was sure to be one that would forever leave a pungent taste upon her lips.

Vaguely perturbed as to be left shivering in the cold on Will's terrace, Karen remembered with the most distinct agitation, the vexation special agent Crawford had with the proposal of permitting Karen to interview Will in his own bureau. Disproving of the young journalist's addition to the team in the beginning, Jack did not wish to add to the treason by tainting his place of work with it any longer than what was necessary. And Jack deemed this interview with Will as being highly unnecessary.

Appearing to mirror his supervisor's opinion on the matter, Will refused to grant her entry into his home, disposing of all pleasantries in one abrupt action of crudeness. Thus, Karen was forced to suppress a shiver as the arctic Virginian wind nipped at the exposed skin around her wrists and neck while she sat conspicuously dejected upon one of Will's porch chairs. It was the one thing that she despised about winter; it was intrusive by nature, always finding a way in despite the layers you wore.

As she shifted her weight to favor a pose of elegance with crossed legs made complete by a subtle air of fabricated confidence, the remorseful creak of the chair's protest ruined her attempts towards refined mannerisms. Refusing to admit defeat, Karen remained in the rather uncomfortable position, sticking relentlessly to her professionalism even as her leg became numb from the weight of the other. She found the entire atmosphere of the evening to be compellingly awkward by design and could not help but blame Will for choosing it to be so.

The perpetrator in question seemed rather conceited in his efforts to exasperate the young reporter within an inch of her sanity, despite its evidence not appearing anywhere on his vacant features. Instead, he appeared strikingly frazzled, as did Karen, by the intrusiveness of a simple series of questions. Will failed to produce any form of a confident demeanor as he attempted, with every fiber of his being, to avoid her probing gaze.

"Shall we start?" The strain and apprehension she carried stretched her tone to a higher octave than anticipated as it seemed to stir Will's arsenal of dog's curiosity. They raised their heads warily towards Karen, who could only offer a diminutive smile, the meekest of gestures, back.

Upon noting his fretful hesitation in the form of anxiously rubbing his mouth, as if to wipe from it its very jaded expression to truly leave nothing left, Karen decided to offer a few words of reassurance. It was a form of speech that was unfortunately not her strongest suit, despite her otherwise valiant efforts. "This is your story, Mr. Graham. I will only write what you want me to. Within reason, of course." She added hastily, words stumbling ineptly into one another upon noting the corruption such an offer insinuated.

Will merely raised his brow in retort, a micro expression suggesting he found her offer hard to swallow. Nonetheless, Karen was appreciative that he did not voice his opinion for once.

Taking a moment to release a consoling breath that she had been holding in for quite some time, Karen reluctantly realized that this was not the start to her revolutionary interview that she had fathomed. Despite her rather formidable setbacks, Karen's lips curled into an amiable smile that reached the very corners of her eyes as it crinkled them in the most enchanting of ways. She was simply elated to be granted such an opportunity to prove her worth even if it were in such callous conditions.

Her enthusiasm rolled forth from her once timid frame in the sturdy waves of the imprudent fervor that choked Will, rendering him winded with each passing one. All that remained of her apprehension were the subtle premonitions that gnawed within her as they cautioned her to not botch up this opportunity.

_No pressure at all_. Despite her best efforts, Karen's thoughts were laced with the fine, tart lines of cynicism as the consequences of her failure found its way uninvited into her mind. She quickly dismissed such disconcerting notions with the first of her queries.

"Your career with Jack Crawford started with the investigation into the serial murders by Garret Jacob Hobbs. Would you care to add anything to the report?"

"He's dead." Will supplied in the flattest of tones that appeared to dull even the paint on his home. Appearing almost dethatched from his speech, only a look of monotony remained to etch itself into the fine lines of his brow as it ebbed away all other emotions he deemed trifling.

Despite seeing the glimmer of conviction in the journalist's eyes, it did not entail that he would be the compliant and submissive subordinate that was expected of him. If it is one thing that Will Graham does best, it is building his walls.

"Noted." Karen pursed her lips, but maintained a courteous grin despite her accumulating frustrations. "What can you tell me about the way you investigate?"

Will had to admit that he found such a smile abnormally comforting in some peculiar way of human interaction that had escaped his scrutiny. Regardless of its noble efforts, it did little to sooth the contempt he still mulishly clung to.

"'He catches insane men because he can think like them,'" he retorted, reading verbatim from Ms. Lounds's article the very words that had plagued his thoughts without remorse since the beginning. It alone was enough to reunite his lips with a distasteful scoff that personified his contempt for the ones that haunted him. His derision surfaced once more as it rimmed the burnt cerulean within his eyes, twisting them to complete its design of disdain. With what little remorse the journalist's patience would grant her, Karen realized it to be by her hand that such scorn found a home in the analyst's eyes.

Upon noting her subtle exasperation, he felt the need to clarify if only with the slightest, condescending explanation. "I told you before, I don't do interviews," came his level tone as if to excuse his discourteous behavior by projecting the blame onto one perturbed Karen.

"You've made that abundantly clear," Karen retorted in a tone stretched thin by her waning patience. She was unable to keep her tart mockery at bay as it seeped into her words and, regrettably, her gaze.

The pleasant smile still hung tenaciously upon her lips, but it was growing tighter and more insincere with every insubordinate insult. It seemed that the events of the previous day had gradually ebbed away her patience until slowly she was left with a gnarled and twisted form of fortitude. Now it too was being slowly chipped away until Karen feared she would be left with nothing but her frustrations to keep her company.

She knew that something was holding him back from trusting her, something just beyond the surface that waxed and waned as he crafted his defenses. She could glimpse a glimmer of it every now and again as he dismissed her pursuits of grandeur as being nothing more than the voice of the zealous youth, made delirious by its own naivety. Karen mistook it for remnants of trepidation and cynicism left over from the wake of Ms. Lounds's destruction. Regardless of its creator, Karen knew that in order to fulfill her desires and uncover the trust that was beneath the shell of Will Graham, she would have to tear down each one of those pesky walls.

In the smallest voice her reason had left, it warned her of what she might find past those walls, but she was far too invested to pay it any notice.

"Fine," she concluded in a lighter tone than her heart felt as the young tabloid journalist did something that went against all of her previous teachings. With an audible click that defied all she was told, she turned off her tape recorder, her finger wavering slightly over the power button in a moment's worth of hesitation as she contemplated if she truly were acting in accordance with her pristine morals and not with her aggravated vices. It was soon echoed by the dull thud her pad made as it succumbed to gravity, resonating briefly within Will as it struck the floor. Her borrowed pen rolled across the floor and out of reach, serenading her rebellious behavior with a final thump as it connected with the wall. "Then I won't interview you. Instead, let's just talk. We are just two people trying to get to know one another, if you like."

Despite the rather curious move, there was no intrigue upon the consultant's visage to suggest he even noted a difference in the reporter's mannerisms.

"I don't find you interesting." The words came blundering forth from the voice of the apathetic as it mocked all in its gaze. Will's ineptitude for all things social was only met with another layer of brick and stone that prevented his sentiments from seeping though. He kept them all locked away behind his deadpan gaze, never to be distressed by them again.

It was a lie. That much was apparent to Karen, or else she knew she wouldn't have been able to make it this far. However, that did little to lessen the bluster of the insult's insolence.

Sighing lightly upon her defeat, Karen simply pressed her back into the chair's full iron structure completing an indifferent shrug, a demeanor her waning timid frame would sustain. "Good," she found herself stating despite the circumstance. "That means I'm not a psychopath."

Despite the affableness she conducted her speech with; her words had a restrained bite to them that did not go unnoticed by the taught behavioral analyst. "I'm not here to entertain you. I'm here to write about you."

"Careful, Miss. Bishop," Will appeared to taunt in such a gauche manner, as if the concept was new to him. "Your backbone is showing."

In a moment of blinding revelation, it struck her with such a ferocity that even the dogs could hear as they grudgingly opened one languid eye to witness everything sliding into perspective for the young tabloid journalist.

"You're testing me," she breathed out in a moment of astonished disbelief. "Why?" It seemed like such a dense query to ask as it fell back mockingly upon her ears, but it was all her listless mind could grasp at given its recent shock.

He smiled slightly, a sort of lopsided grin that only curled one corner of his lips in a manner that suggested he was never truly delighted with anything enough for it to spread to both sides. In a distorted since of humor that became twisted from the ridicule and the jests breathed into life by those who only held doubts for him, Will believed what this interview lacked was a proper demonstration of his specific talent. With the slightest intrigue, he found that he was almost pleased to provide her with one.

"You let people like Jack Crawford – people with a boisterous authority who openly dispute you and marginalize you – push you around because in your mind you don't think that you deserve any other form of treatment. I had to make sure it wouldn't interfere with your interpretation of ethical journalism." Karen could still hear the ridicule in his tone as he repeated such a naïve word, but was content to note it was fading with time.

"I wasn't that way with you," she commented softly, a touch of pride in her tone from holding her ground for once.

"I don't count." A chuckle caught somewhere between amusement and self-pity hung loosely upon his lips.

In a moment that appeared beyond Karen's comprehension, the lines that adorned Will's features seemed to smooth, ebbing away his scorn until an expression that bared a striking resemblance to empathy remained. "Pleasantries will only carry you so far in today's world, Miss Bishop," he concluded on the softest of tones that carried the weight of his words in an almost whisper.

Feeling bashfully exposed under the weight of his deductions, the young tabloid journalist crossed her arms in a guarded fashion against her chest, as if to assure herself his presumptions were at their end.

She was wrong.

In the smallest of voices that remained of the accused, Karen retorted rather defensively despite her best efforts to maintain her composed tone, "You were manipulating me."

"Only as you were with me."

His words wavered between chastisement and a taunt, as if he found it all to be vaguely amusing despite what little shred of reason in him objected. No longer able to feign her innocence, Karen knew that an explanation was to pursue, whether it came from her lips or not.


	4. Chapter Three

The air around Karen became dense as it entwined with the tension protruding from her now rigid frame. Resting heavy upon her shoulders, the events replayed relentlessly in her mind searching for where it all went wrong. Fretful eyes wavering between an alarmed verdant and a cautious jade beseeched his silence upon the matter with the silent words of the remorseful. They remained widen as they appeared to echo every one of her audible heartbeats that came off as a drumming noise inside her head, pounding until she felt nothing more than its quivering beat beneath her skin. Falling upon her own silence, her mind raked over its contents unremittingly in pursuit of some grain of information to act as leverage to change the approaching conversation. Alas, it only returned back as a fraction of what it once was with empty hands.

Appearing vaguely content by his intellectual triumph, a conceited smirk hung impetuously upon his lips, as if it were the medal he earned for his efforts. Instigating the deliberate destruction of another restored a bit of confidence in him as he witnessed the crack in the young tabloid journalist's demeanor beginning to grow, threatening to consume her until all that remained would be the jaded apathy that mirrored his own. In a sensation that could be confused with a jovial delight, Will relished the notion that he was not the only one who was breaking from the weight of the world.

His analysis came excruciatingly slow, deliberately drawing out every word to prolong the torment as he crafted each one with a calculated shrewdness. "It's going to take more than a simple clarification story to take down Freddie Lounds. It's going to take an arsenal of breaking news reports, and what better credentials than from the FBI's own personal crime records?" A snide chortle sauntered from his lips as he shook his head faintly from its reverberations.

"You plan on reporting the facts before Ms. Lounds has an opportunity to misconstrue them. An admirable feat though it may be, you knew you couldn't go to Jack directly because he would simply mistake you for being naïve, as the chortles from the other day supports. Which lead you to the conclusion of using someone else – a peon of sorts to help spread your message to Jack. Who better than the broken special agent whom you could entice with a chance of retribution?" Will's fingers seemed to shudder in their agitation as his features pulled taut over his visage in an attempt to conceal the vexation underneath. His tone lowered to such foreboding levels that chilled the air with his allegations and coerced a sudden shiver from Karen, one that she knew was not brought from the wind. "It's a scheme worthy of a tabloid journalist. Your only mistake was picking me."

"Damn," the sole word caught within Karen's breath, threatening to wrench the space between them with its vulgar crudeness. "You are astute." She admitted amazed against her better judgment. Fingernails dug into the soft flesh of her temples, attempting to tear forth the plethora of sentiments that would not be silenced by her frantic pleas for comfort.

Terror. Anguish. Unwavering trepidation. Even the ardent self-flagellation. She was no stranger to their whims as they cried with the voice of the crippling vice just beneath her skin. Ringing within her ears, they bellowed over the others as insatiable children waiting to take what they deem theirs. Will had to turn his head completely, or risk getting caught within its self-destructive wake.

She despised herself in that very moment, dangerously teetering upon the point of loathing. She fervently wished to alter her conduct, but her depravities left such a hold on her that when she broke free she could still hear their saccharine lullabies and their entrancing promises, whispering to her that it could all just go away. Her mouth opened only to close once more upon finding no tender words to come to her aid, for what could you possible say to the man who could see through you?

"I'm sorry." With the meekest of tones she appeared utterly contrite; her genuine disgrace softening them to the sound of the gentle breeze that rustled past Will's ears. The sorrow that had seized her words rippled across her features as the warm waters in spring leaving Will with a sense of nostalgia that he could not quite place. "I'm sorry if I hurt you in some way. It was never my intension for that to happen."

This time Will's brow furrowed upon her uncanny performance as time seemed to stop from its own perplexities upon her words, for none have been fortunate enough to witness a tabloid journalist apologize. Her regrets sounded queer and oddly foreign to Will as he was made hesitant by the peculiarity of the experience, suspicious if it were all another ploy. Could the vulture still possess a shred of humility somewhere deep within?

Taking it upon herself to fill the void the stunned stillness created, Karen chose her words carefully despite them parting from her lips in the hastened rush of the accountable. "For the record, I was going to tell you my intentions after I interviewed you. Your chance of reformation had no part in this. I truly meant what I said about clearing your name. You deserve that much with the work you do."

Will noted that her tone lacked a subtle sharpness to it as he realized she was not being defensive, but merely attempting to illuminate her motives. She wished for it all to be over, but somewhere in the far recesses of her mind she knew it to be just beginning.

She shifted unnervingly in her seat, her next admittance rendering her anxious before it was even crafted by her tongue. "And to make matters even clearer, I never said I didn't practice the more . . ." her voice trailed off lightly despite her heavy heart as she pursued a more poised word to describe her previous endeavors, "traditional methods." Made hesitant by the cruelty that had laced her intentions, Karen wondered if she truly had changed or if she was merely delusional.

The unadulterated sorrow and fervor that crafted her words pierced and shattered his empathy in a matter that made Will wince from the boisterous brutality of it all. He had no need for her sympathies, already having too much of his own to comfortably carry. What he desired he knew she would not hand over willing, and thus the behavioral analyst decided to take one more thing from the young columnist.

With walls refusing to bend to her penitent crafted whims, his tone was once again refused its considerate pleasantries. "Couldn't handle the dirty looks society was giving you so you decided to change." Will scoffed, brash words formed hastily by his conjectures as a flicker of derision returned to his frame to penetrate his glower. His eyes darkened in their lust for an explanation to rest his weary mind upon and to restore the turbulent waters back to their once tranquil nature, as was intended.

"No," Karen corrected in the meekest of tones, "that never bothered me. I'm . . . I'm not sure why . . ." Her brow furrowed as she concentrated on her actions, appearing lost within the forest of her mind. _Why_ did she destroy so many people's lives?

After a moment's worth of wavering introspection, Karen offered the only explanation that remained to her: the truth that was bent slightly from her coddling perspective.

"I think I assumed it to all be part of the job, like it excused my actions. You accept the money they offer you without ever questioning where it comes from. It's all part of the deal." The tenderness of memories passed collected into the fine, concentrated lines on her brow as she admitted out loud what she had always feared to be true. "I felt no remorse for what I did and that scared me. I wrote things – terrible, horrible things – and I never thought twice about it. When I finally realized that I was so far away from the person that I wanted to be, I-I don't know. I felt. . ."

"Trapped." Will took the liberty upon himself to offer his inference and Karen noticed with the slightest bit of reassurance that his tone was softening. His eyes closed firmly upon the term, knowing it to be the one that she sought.

"Yes . . . Trapped," she concurred, tasting the ripe animosity of it upon her tongue as the vile word rolled languidly around her mouth almost in a defiant mock. "I didn't want to be a part of an industry that rewarded such ruthless and, frankly, tasteless behavior. But there wasn't much I could do. As you mentioned before, pleasantries only get you so far. So I did what I do best. I schemed. Evidently," a remorseful smile spread across her lips as her gaze reached out towards Will's only to be met by dismissal as he averted his, "it appears my best wasn't good enough."

When she parted her lips again, no dialogue found its way to the tip of her tongue for they all fell into a timid silence. Desperately, Karen searched for the precise words to convey her message. When she found what she hoped to be them, she offered them humbly to him as an offer of her remorse. "I'm not just writing your reformation. I'm writing mine as well. I know this makes things more personal than what I led them to be, but I meant what I said about changing the industry."

The fervent sorrow shaped and stretched the docile features that adorned her visage, painting them with the agonizing ache of patience as they surfaced within her eyes to glisten with thoughts of naïve hope. She nibbled nervously down upon her lips, stripping them of their chapstick one layer of thick wax after another. Greeted by the artificially strong taste of strawberries as it overwhelmed her senses, its savor only seemed to encourage such an apprehensive conduct as it consoled her nerves.

An uncomfortable silence pressed itself into every corner of the room, filling every space of optimistic dialogue with a vacant abyss. Karen watched as the subtle lines of deliberation traced Will's features, collecting upon his brow where it aged him with his own thoughts. But on what, Karen was not able to ascertain.

Then, when Karen was convinced that she would have to leave with her tail between her legs once more, he finally spoke.

"Garret Jacob Hobbs was unique." Will's tone faltered between its reservations, but it seemed to favor more of a calculated shrewdness then the tone of a memory best forgotten. Firmly closing his eyes in the manner of the thoroughly exhausted, he caught wisps of the stag as he felt its hot breath creeping upon the back of his neck. In a sullen revelation, Will knew it would haunt him again tonight. "There really isn't any other word that describes his condition. He was a sensitive sociopath who tried, in his mind, to honor the girls that he murdered. By not wasting a single part of them, he showed them all his love."

"He had to kill them," Will spoke with such an imperative ferocity that distressed Karen as his fists clenched upon the brutality of his analysis. He began to shake by the weight of his words, but before Karen could voice her concerns, he had composed himself in a manner that suggested it never occurred. "They reminded him of _her_, his golden ticket. They were his practice trials, his guilty indulgence to curb his cravings until it grew to where he was ready for _her_. In his mind, they were guilty by association."

Will furrowed his brow as his speech seemed to stir some other train of thought within him.

"His mind. . ." He started, shaking his head in slight incredulity that he was ever there as he drew his mouth into a tight, thin line, desperately hoping to prevent the words from coming because he no longer wanted to feel the ache of their burden anymore. "Being inside his mind was like being the most miniscule particle of dust, floating above everyone, trying to catch their shadows. He wanted _her_ love and he convinced himself that she never gave him enough, so he decided to take it from her. Permanently." His eyes closed upon his scrutiny, only to be haunted by visions of stags and chaste girls in white dresses once more. With a violent shock, they opened promptly, no longer wishing to repeat the past.

"His daughter?" Karen supplied tentatively, filling in the breaches of Will's analysis.

"Abigail Hobbs." Will rubbed his eyes with an intolerant violence that was unknown to Karen as he silently beckoned for a slumber to come that never will. "Do you have any more questions?" The impetuous bigotry was returning to his tone and Karen knew its presence meant their exchange to be ending, but not before she had a chance to raise her final query that had been prickling her mind since the beginning.

"He catches insane men because he can think like them," she repeated, the words feeling superciliously foreign upon her tongue. "But you're able to get into my head. Is this your way of telling me that I am insane?"

The jocular tone of the query suggested it was a mere quip to lighten the mood, complimented by her coy smirk, but Will could feel the yearning interest underneath as a subtle undertone that serenaded the young journalist's qualms. Despite himself, Will found it rather amusing to be glancing at one of her basic human qualities; the one that wondered what she was. With a miniscule dash of intrigue, he permitted himself to wonder if there was a shred of humanity in the vulture that he had overlooked.

"No," he chuckled faintly, a breath of fresh air in the rather stagnant space. "Empathy works for everyone so long as you have the active imagination for it."

"Something so active must come at a price." The words had escaped her lips before her listless mind could comprehend the vile intrusiveness that they suggested. Karen suppressed a shiver upon hearing them, realizing it to belong to the tasteless columnist still within her.

Will merely glanced at her, shrewd eyes passing over her bashful figure as she appeared exuberantly repentant for what her courtesies couldn't control, in a way that needed no words to his expertise. The faintest trace of curiosity crafted his query. "What do you see when you look at me?"

"I-I'm not sure." She stammered, rendered defenseless by the reversal of the analytical ambush.

"You're lying, and a poor attempt at that." The smallest of smiles grazed Will's lips as it tugged at one corner until it grudgingly obeyed. "Whatever you see, you don't want to tell me. That's not very ethical. Is it, Miss. Bishop?" His tongue clicked against the roof of his mouth in a taunting, chastising manner that reverberated within the space that separated them.

"Fair enough." Karen merely shrugged despite the petite smile of amusement that graced her lips.

She settled firmly into the chair, leaning forward upon her elbows as she fixed her gaze intently upon him in an attempt to peer behind his walls. A look of magnanimous fortitude overcame her docile features as she prepared herself for her turn at analysis. Despite himself, Will found it oddly bemusing that the girl would try so hard to the point where her deliberation wrinkled her nose in an almost whimsical way as it titled her head in a manner that made it heavy by what it found.

"When I look into your eyes," she began in an attempt to mimic his astute timbre, "a man with autism or Asperger's isn't who I see staring back at me. I think the real reason that you don't meet people's gaze is because you're afraid of what you might find. You can see through them, knowing their innermost desires, even the ones that lay silently dormant. You can see into people's minds, and I think that frightens you."

In accordance with his natural demeanor, Will remained condemningly aloof, appearing utterly unfazed by Karen's interpretation. All that remained of her efforts was the slightest arch in Will's brow that caused Karen to suspect that some form of her scrutiny was still resonating within him.

"I believe you just answered your question." Will was going to offer a trepid sort of chuckle for her troubles but thought better of it as a new inquiry found its way uninvited into his mind on the back of a stag. "Is that something that you're going to mention in your article?"

"Is it something that you want me to?"

Will smiled a genuine grin briefly at the statement. The familiarity of its inquisitiveness reminded him of someone that has gone unmentioned for far too long.

"Finally," Karen commented with a furtive smirk, "he smiles."

"You remind me of someone." Will paused briefly as he dithered upon the correct term that epitomized their relationship in his mind. "My psychiatrist, Dr. Hannibal Lecter." He constructed the remark pragmatically, almost tentatively as he gauged the journalist's reaction to their connotation.

Karen felt her brow furrow to convey her inquisitiveness, searching within the depths of her mind for the name only to find no such correlation. "Ms. Lounds failed to mention you had a psychiatrist in her article."

"Well, Ms. Lounds failed to mention several things." The sneer had returned, but this time – with a bit of benevolent bliss – Karen noted that it was diminished in some way, for it no longer contained the shrewd bite it once had.

It was such a clandestine response, a secret to be shared just between the two of them that made Karen feel positively dripping with giddiness. This restored her confidence in a manner that strengthened it as if it were a mending bone. There was a particular comfort that enclosed her in knowing that all intentions had been illuminated, even the ones that had been fashioned by her depravity.

"I would like to interview him, if I have your permission?" Upon noting the subtle inquisitiveness that contorted his face in a way Karen thought unfathomable – for Will wore a facade of stone that only cracked to reveal the antagonism that was within – she was quick to offer her intentions. "The best way to know someone is to understand the people they surround themselves with."

After a moment, Will merely nodded a blunt bob of approval towards the suggestion, fatigue rendering him unable to dispute the logic she designed. It was not the zealous acceptance Karen had been anticipating, but it curled her lips in a content smile as if it were.

That night when Karen returned to the warmth of her apartment, she poured herself a rather generous glass of the darkest wine she could find, feeling that she earned its every rich drop. She held it liable for the peculiar dreams that ensued, for they were filled with images of teacups and the sorrowful notion of where they went once they were chipped.


	5. Chapter Four

Dr. Hannibal Lecter's office was enchanting to say the least. A touch ostentatious, but not gaudy as Karen soaked in the vibrant crimsons and dark, chocolate leathers of the room. Even the wood that occasionally adorned his office had such rich connotations of warmth to it that it appeared to be pulsating much like the life force in her veins. Every piece was scrupulously chosen to fulfill a higher purpose, rather it be one for comfort or aesthetics. It reminded Karen more of a work of art, with its quaint persona and placate demeanor that could be appreciated even by the most inept of beholders, than of a place to practice healing. Despite her naivety to the cultivation of the refined art society, its splendor was not wasted on Karen as she took her time to value each one.

However, it all paled in comparison to his private library. Resting just a floor above her in such a delicate manner that whispered enticing prospects to Karen, it was tucked comfortably away as to not impose the doctor's intellect. Rather, it suggested it subtly in a manner that lightly enriched the room and turned all it touched into faint wisps of wisdom.

A true appreciation for art may evade one as ingenuous as Karen, but tangible books spoke in a language she would always be able to decipher. She admired the collection from afar, feeling as if she had not earned the personal privilege to browse through them just yet with fingers eagerly grazing each one, consuming their delectable tales with gusto. The leather bound medical journals that were worn from age and utilization and the encyclopedias depicting the human anatomy in unique hand drawn illustrations – which were all utterly ordinary to find lying upon a psychiatrist's shelf – accosted her with their intellect and beseeched her to uncover their veiled truths amongst their pages. But the true works of art that reached out to her were the sets of opulent classical literature that he had scattered between the proficient. Karen felt the goose bumps delicately graze her skin upon spotting such tour de force by Charles Dickens and Oscar Wilde. With a dash of callous amusement, Karen pondered if the good doctor had truly read each work or was merely claiming to.

Spending far too much time ogling his collection then she had anticipated, she hastily averted her attention to the contents that scattered his desk. She surveyed them with the utmost scrutiny her twenty-seven years possessed as she observed each trinket the doctor deemed worthy to convey a clandestine glimpse into his persona. They were all painstakingly customary as Karen found them tedious by design, crestfallen that she had not come across a more personal memento.

Satisfying her insatiable curiosity, she sat in his exquisite leather chair, pretending for a moment that she was a flourishing psychiatrist and no longer the tabloid columnist that earned the world's derision. She felt power – authentic, world shattering influence unlike the fraudulent fabrications of her own– that compelled a sense of security in the fragile girl, as well as installed a vague sense of trepidation.

Before she was able to dwell upon such a concept, an abrupt cough imposed itself upon the room, alerting Karen that she was no longer its sole presence. It was no more a clearing of the throat than a query towards her impromptu presence. And judging by the slight opposition within the interruption, Karen assumed it to belong to the man who owned this fine establishment.

Dr. Hannibal Lecter appeared every bit as refined as his office with his meticulously constructed three piece suits and pristine, flaxen hair combed quaintly back. Karen mistook him for another embellishment that adorned his office's walls and centered all focal points upon him – a means to an aesthetic end. In this room he was a man no more, for he was a tool, an analytical instrument and his conduct reflected every bit of this introspection.

His visage was smooth, a stone worn down from the constant sway of the ever-changing tides. Karen couldn't help but to wonder what caliber the doctor had experienced to make it so. Upon making his acquaintance, the whimsical mirth diminished from Karen's exploration for he possessed an air of respectful dominance that was no more intrusive as it was professional. Feeling vaguely threatened by the man's blasé gaze, Karen hid behind her walls of fabricated confidence once more.

"Hello, Dr. Lecter. It's a pleasure to finally make your acquaintance," Karen conversed with the ease of artificial poise. A courteous smile graced her lips as an expression she hoped to fully portray her reverent etiquette. "My name is Karen Bishop and I work for Tattle Crime. I called you earlier inquiring about an interview."

Hannibal made no sign of acknowledgement; no subtle little glimmer of reciprocity as he awaited further explanation, for his one query had yet to be quenched. Karen offered a sheepish grin upon realizing his eyes to be upon her, followed by an inquisitive glance towards his chair.

"Forgive me, Doctor, but I couldn't resist the opportunity to see what it was like behind the desk." The meekness was returning to her tone, lacing it with the gentle inflection of the docile. Karen could feel the warmth upon her cheeks and regretfully knew what it implied about her demur demeanor. With a mere gaze, he was able to effortlessly peel back her artificial confidence compelling Karen to be wary of what his speech might entail.

She rose to return to her rightful place, but Hannibal ceased all movement in the room with a simple wave of the hand, abruptly remembering his cordial manners.

"Please," he spoke with such a rich accent that wavered between elegant French and an enthralling unknown that Karen couldn't quite place. Like every girl before her, Karen found it enchanting as it enticed her to hang upon his every word. "Allow me to indulge you further. This promises to be a rare opportunity to gain some insight into my patients' psyche."

His etiquette curled his lips in an amiable smile that Karen was rather unprepared for, lulling her into a sense of comfort as she witnessed it crinkle the corners of his eyes in its earnestness. Despite the rather gallant proposition, Hannibal claimed no seat of his own as he remained standing contentedly with his fulsome authority.

Karen staggered slightly back from the rarity of the circumstance, never anticipated on meeting such an affluent psychiatrist who would voluntarily give up the serenity and sanctuary of his desk or the dissociative sentimental barrier that it provided. It was a fascist that seemed to draw the naïve journalist into him, intrigued by her own yearning curiosity.

Abiding by the role reversal, Karen asked the only inquiry she could think of when it came to Hannibal's vocation. "How is your relationship with your mother?"

That prompted an effortless chuckle from the affable doctor. One that simulated the breeze as it nimbly flows through a set of wind chimes, refreshing in its capricious way. In the far corners of Karen's mind, the reservations imposed itself with its abhorrent speculations of it sounding flat to her ears, merely mimicking the vibrations without possessing the initiator of a mirthful vigor. She plainly dismissed it in her denial, being all too enamored by his eloquent charm.

"It appears you are a natural, Miss Bishop." He fashioned the words from behind lips pulled taut into a diminishing smile, wavering upon muddled amusement and exasperation. But Karen remained utterly ignorant to this minor alteration in demeanor, for she was far too preoccupied with her own animated conduct – grinning absurdly upon the prospect of acceptance.

His preference towards a posh persona seemed to spill forth upon his demeanor, passing his elegant three piece suit that restricted his movements as if to remind him that they must appear tight and rigid to where it seeped into his very cadence. When he spoke, Karen was certain she was reading the words from a highly regarded medical journal and not hearing the true dialogue of a man, for it was such a professional tone that seemed to craft each word with precision. His accent only added to the allure as it softened his speech, falling sharply upon certain consonants while straining others with its foreign diction in a manner that always kept its listeners on their toes.

But it was not his enunciation that Karen found to be the most enthralling quirk about the psychiatrist. No, it was his eyes. They were impervious to everything as no sentiment dared to reach them, falling short upon his thinly pressed lips. Appearing silent in a room of whispers, they heard it all but offered none in exchange. Speaking with no words or sentiments like the rest of his mannerisms, they remained captivatingly silent. They were void of preconceived thought and reduced to just a pair of russet rimmed orbs that Karen found unnerving and yet inexplicably fascinating.

There was a story behind his eyes, she could just _feel_ it.

"Mr. Graham warned me that you were a charmer," she retorted with a coy smirk, preparing an analysis of her own.

The true wit of any man was measured by the grip of his pride and Karen desired nothing more than to assess such an adage. She mused if he would succumb to such idle flattery as the men before him had, crafting yet another rueful sword for a great man to fall upon.

Hannibal found her excruciatingly austere in her games, despite her attempts to be more intricately profound than what was allowed of her. In such a short amount of time, he grew jaded with her, maintaining his charismatic allure purely out of second nature.

"What else did Will warn you about?" Hannibal inquired, appearing the stable of serenity we are all left to strive for as his hands found their way imperturbably into his pockets.

Karen could practically taste the smoothness of his voice as it dripped in the fluid fabrication of a finely aged scotch, sending ripples of reassurance as something to hold on to in an unprecedented world. She presumed he knew all too well the enjoyments of the posh liquor for he struck her as a man who was accustomed to the superior, and consequently more expensive, things in life. Regardless, the journalist took the bait eagerly, elated that for once one conversation was going effortlessly.

"That you are very good at what you do." She supplied, glancing about the room as she conversed, soaking in the ambiance to better capture the enigmatic doctor's essence. "He claimed that in the first few minutes of meeting someone, you may know more about them than they do."

Naturally, Will did not utter such an adulation in so many words, leaving her to read between the socially awkward lines of reverence Will seemed to carry for the good doctor. Nevertheless, Karen wished to test the man, if only in the most palpable of ways.

"It appears Will has a charm of his own." The incredulity did not taint his words, but Karen ascertained by its absence that Hannibal recognized a challenge when he heard one. Content by his astuteness, Karen awarded the first point of the evening to the psychiatrist.

Hannibal's eyes monotonously followed hers to a collection of his drawings scattered upon a table. He watched with an absence of alarm as she warily noted the scalpel he rendered into a pencil sharpener, perceiving her to be no more a menace than a nuisance.

He found little intrigue in the reporter before him, but he enticed her nonetheless. "Are you curious to know if it is true?"

"Not at all," Karen countered with an enchanting smile of her own that curled the corners of her lips in a whimsical, almost endearing manner that was not uncommon for her age. Reciprocating the tender curl of the lips, Hannibal noted such genuine words have never been uttered before.

She did not particularly care for the doctor's probing gaze to surface that which she kept untouched behind locked doors. Karen had gone through such an ordeal to keep the past behind her that it would seem almost ironic for it to spill forth from the inquiries of a man she hardly knew.

It was unfortunately the incorrect thing to say, for it only enticed the psychiatrist's analysis further. The subtle defensiveness that stretched her lexis in such an intriguing way left gaps large enough for Hannibal to occupy, to breathe deeply in and to become. The resistance of the response animated the psychiatrist in the meekest of ways as vague diagnoses wandered into his mind with little amusement. His gaze hardened to one of minor scrutiny, chocolate irises transfixed into soft spun threads of amber that pierced through her veils. He noted the way she shied away from his gaze – folding her arms protectively against her chest in a futile attempt to thwart the impending psychoanalysis. Such a mannerism almost delighted him for it assured his dominance in the situation, a sentiment Hannibal refused to part from. Karen felt timidly transparent from his minor gaze, coercing her to realize that she would not like a direct account of its full extent.

"Shall we begin?" Karen insisted with a dash of urgency constricting her tone. She never liked being made the center of attention, especially when premonitions of an analytical ambush were emanate.

She provided him no means of dispute as she prepared her recording devices. Flipping through the pages of her notepad, she finally rested upon a clean sheet past the garish cartoons of Ms. Lounds and her gaudy red hair. There was one depicting the despised columnist as a clown, made complete by a rubber nose and ludicrously oversized shoes, that Karen felt a particular sense of pride over.

"A tape recorder and a notepad? You must be a very thorough individual," he commented indifferently despite the courteous smile that curled the corners of his lips in its own pleasantries.

The psychoanalysis had commenced, despite Karen's vain attempts to thwart it.

"I take my job seriously," she replied casually before the saccharine sorrow seeped through to her tone, vaguely burdening the weight of her words, "although there are those who think I shouldn't." The emerald within her eyes darkened to a lackluster shadow of jade as the ridicule's scornful words mocked her from inside her own head. She had once been impervious to their taunts and jests, but now Karen could not escape the remorseful realization that thick skin burns twice as fast.

Comprehending the indication to the broken man they shared in common, it made his next statement appear effortless as if breed from its own desire. "Patient confidentiality prohibits me from speaking to you about any of Mr. Graham's sessions."

"I know," Karen replied with unadorned words that were stretched thin by their lucidity, sounding anything but plain to the good doctor. Her brow furrowed upon his change in diction as she became curious towards the reason behind his sudden formality when referring to Will as a patient. Could it be the good doctor's walls were crumbling for the broken man?

"Being Mr. Graham's psychiatrist, you analyze the mind that analyzes the murderous psychopaths of this region. Unless I put a face and a history to your title, then I'm afraid it's just another word on a page that does little to comfort readers." She crafted her contention with such fictitious poise that appeared compellingly translucent to the good doctor's scrutiny. Nevertheless, he decided to reward her attempts for he knew the difficulties her timid frame must have overcome to speak them.

"What were you hoping to discuss?" There was a certain compassionate nimbleness to his diction despite the lines that framed his visage pulling a fraction of an inch tighter upon his features, concealing the derision he hid towards the prying into his personal affairs. He was a meticulous man by nature and his compulsions would not permit too long of a glance into his proper form.

This time, the irony was not disregarded by Karen.


	6. Chapter Five

Karen attempted to deferentially cross her legs in an endeavor to assert her fragile dominance – a conduct she mimicked from other professionals to delude herself into thinking that she too could posses their dynamic dexterity. Her age and demur disposition refused to entertain such notions of aberrant authority, rendering her into nothing more than a jest that Hannibal regretfully found both whimsical and tedious.

Like a child feigning adolescence with their parent's belongings, Dr. Lecter found the young girl before him to be nothing more than a trepid, inept shadow of a child brandished by her journalist's attire. Plagued by such notions of grandeur that occasionally seeped into her mannerisms be it by a reverberating chortle that threatened to quake the very walls of his office or an animated grin that appeared booth imprudent and genuine, Karen was portrayed as nothing more than a discomfited division of what she once was. By the way the ethical columnist shifted unnervingly in her seat; he realized that the mere wake of his gaze reverberated within her as the poignant echoes of the past best forgotten.

This time his stockade permitted a faint smile to seize his lips in a vague content, tracing his years as a mark left to personify his innate clout in the smallest of gestures. He saw Karen Bishop for what she truly was – a young girl cursed to be belligerent towards the coddling perception of her adolescence. Perhaps that is what loosened Hannibal's lips if only a fraction of an inch.

In a manner of such cordial elegance, Hannibal pardoned himself to rest his frame against the stiff leather of his patient's seat. Submissive by design, it yielded to him completely, uttering no sound of defiance as he sat with impeccable posture, one leg resting upon the other with fingers entwined around his knee. His gaze never faltered as he fixed it resolutely upon his new subject, absorbing every timid line and tentative angle that formed her palpable docile frame. Subtle traces of curiosity lingered upon his visage, imposing itself into the fine lines of deliberation, but they were no match for his vast ennui as they become forsaken by all things jaded in the world.

Shying away from his probing gaze, Karen released a delicate cough to cleanse the tension that hung thick and wretchedly in the air. With a dash of remorse, Karen was obligated to realize that it did no such thing.

"Let's start with how long you've been in psychiatric practice," she nearly chirped, scarcely able to contain her jubilation from bolstering her already acute timbre. Despite the trepidation that clouded her brow with its trace marks of deliberation, she remained elated to be granted such an opportunity to define her own significance. Her tone consisted of a mirthful air, wavering between formality and inquisitiveness that stretched her inflection in a manner Hannibal found vaguely familiar and tartly repugnant.

A cordial grin seized the young girl's lips, wandering to her eyes as it left wisps of golden fervor amongst the forested verdant that spiraled and abruptly twisted in the faint morning light as the restless dance of the zealous. It added a remarkable shade of youth to her visage; for ambition, Hannibal believed, was a poison best to be craved by the young. He could taste the eagerness that laced her words as a plump fruit not quite ripe enough for the picking, wafting with the aroma of vibrant flowers in bloom. Its green nature appearing both saccharine and pungent as it beckoned him to follow. Naturally, Hannibal civilly declined their offer, for such a sentiment could never be reciprocated by the inscrutable doctor as his expression remained one chiseled from garnet and stone.

Instead, his tone bore a particular insipidness to it, responding as if on cue as he spoke, "Six years now."

Karen silently watched as the memories lapsed upon the burnt amber within his eyes, darkening them to a whisper of russet as he too was vaguely stunned by its duration. With ease, he dismissed them in a manner that compelled Karen to question its existence. She furrowed her brow slightly, faint wisps of concern emerging as the fear made itself known that the affable doctor might appear to be more like Will than she anticipated. She grimaced slightly as the premonition of birds of a feather left an archaically pungent flavor upon the tongue.

"You were a surgeon before those six years, were you not?" Karen framed her statement into a query, but it rung throughout the space with an answer already intact. When Hannibal raised an inquisitive brow to her question, faintly bemused by her deduction, Karen supplied sheepishly, "I saw your scalpel. I hope I didn't jump to conclusions."

"On the contrary," a refined velvetiness slipped fluently into his tone, companied by an enigma that sounded pensively blunt within its reverberations. Karen inquired its name but it returned vacant with no reply. "You are correct." Wisps of monotony embarked to wither his visage, waning away its peach hue as it pilfered tiny remembrances of his charm. He was not fond of such rudimentary queries and notions of wasting time began to encroach upon his mind.

Despite his faint intolerance initiating a disregarded fracture of agitation within him, it eased his bristling mind upon knowing she did not possess the shrewdness to truly scrutinize him. There was a particular intellect to her – an intuitiveness bred from years of inquisitiveness and practice that Hannibal could feel fluttering about in her gaze – but an astute wit was not amongst the many traits of Karen Bishop. She could sense his inclement bloodlust like the timid prey that she is, one whose scampers were only interrupted by the cries of craving from the predator – the chilling remembrance that she was tribute to the beast. But she could give it no name to be called by, and thus Hannibal refused to be rendered anxious by the anonymous.

"What made you decide to practice a different branch of medicine? That is if you don't mind discussing it," Karen offered almost hastily as she noted the way the corner of his lips curved into a listless scowl, weighted by the nostalgic reminiscences that he has long since neglected. She did not particularly like the selection of words, for they were intrusive by nature and would not be made docile by her pleasantries, but they were all that remained to convey her tendency to pry.

They carried a subtle pensiveness to them that Hannibal found brazen, for she was not contrite of her words, merely bashful towards their invasion. She was effusive in her expressions, and the proficient psychiatrist managed to decipher each one with little obscurity as they magnified into devastating quantities by his gaze. He found it all to be garishly vile, but his cordial charisma prevailed.

"Not at all," his tone returned to lush velvet as his façade smoothed into one of hospitality, ebbing away the subtle traces of apathy that remained to linger just beyond Karen's gaze. "I fear it's all too common of a problem amongst doctors. Nothing that would make for a riveting read, I'm afraid. I lost one too many lives. Rather, I was not able to save another life, which feels remarkably the same as if you had a hand in ending it. The numbers became overwhelming which lead me to pursue a different passion."

Despite the endearing quality to his tone that laced his inflection with an undeniable truth, they somehow seemed rehearsed to Karen's ears. No more an elucidation than a script to follow when amongst company. It lingered upon her docile features as a disposition bearing a striking resemblance to pity, breathing an air of solace into her next query.

"Do you enjoy what you do now?"

The innocence in her tone entwined itself upon every word, sweetening them in a manner this callous world has forsaken. Hannibal drank from their saccharine waters discreetly with such vivacity, savoring their delicate taste only for them to be transfixed into an acerbic tang upon his tongue. It was such an idle question, an inquiry from a child's lips, but it sounded anything but austere to Hannibal.

Sanguine eyes were upon him, glimmering in the light by their immaculate conception like vivid stars the world casted aside for its insatiable greed. Despite their chaste disposition, Hannibal found them to be idle and utterly out of place in his office. Despite being vaguely stunned by the idiosyncrasy of the query, his visage remained impenetrably vacant. Candid and artless by nature, he saw the young reporter for what she was.

"I have found that no one has died as a result of my therapy." A wry smile tugged at the corners of his lips in a lackluster fashion. It revealed its jocular quip while concealing the restrained undertones of sardonicism that plagued his tone.

Karen offered a blithe chortle in exchange, indisputably amused by his wit. Yet the wisps of ambition still tenaciously adorned her visage in their kaleidoscope colors, for she was anticipating a response fashioned from elemental aspects and picturesque details ridden with sentiments and not another evasive digression.

With a dash of remorse, Karen permitted the query to fade into the encroaching silence of the room, knowing it to be the most authentic response that she'll receive by the elusive doctor.

"You have an unorthodox means of interviewing," Hannibal interjected between her scrawling, noting with vague aversion the vibrant shade of verdant used to paint her nails as a subtle ode to her adolescence.

"I'm an unorthodox journalist," Karen countered with ease, a faint smile gracing her lips that spoke of clandestine conversations and enticing riddles to be solved.

She was growing accustomed to her new, self-proclaimed title. No longer would the ignominy taint the cross she must bear, for it was being cleansed by her proceedings that reflected the vital morality within. Reassured by the vast sense of pride she held towards the title, her grin only widened to match the level of boisterous delight she now carried.

"Yes, Will informed me that you were unlike your predecessor Ms. Lounds." The meekest of scowls tainted only Hannibal's lips as the crude appellation of vulture reverberated throughout his mind with the tone of Will's derision.

"It appears that Mr. Graham has been particularly chatty as of late."

"Indeed he has," he mused in a tone that suggested his words were not in accordance with his mind. And indeed it was not, for his contemplations remained resolute on Karen, impenetrable by any connotations of the broken man.

Hannibal fully regarded the young journalist then, noting the way her hair shimmered in the dim lighting of his office as soft spun threads of gold, reflecting the subtle notes of strawberry-auburn in her flaxen tresses. It framed her docile countenance before collecting into tendrils of loose curls that cascaded down her back, tamed only by the cheap clip resting in the back. Round verdant eyes the color of summer faded delicately into an almond shape that rested above high cheekbones and a petite nose that flowed into her full, pouted lips that would forever be graced by an unadulterated smile. Her strong jaw line smoothed and softened as it reached the delicate point of her chin, completing her heart-shaped visage. Her skin was such a shade of insipid pale that it contrasted softly to the rose of her checks and the scarlet of her lips, a price most vegans paid.

Upon further scrutiny, her imperfections became glaringly apparent as he noted her eyes to be a bit too far apart and her bottom lip to be fuller than the top. They were minor characteristics that did little to alter the girl's physic, but judging by the style of makeup she chose to conceal them with, they had already done irreprehensible damage to her self-esteem. Those minuscule blemishes were what besmirched Karen's definition of herself, reminding her that perfection was just a child's inaccessible fallacy.

She was a tad too tall for her gender, her modest heels adding to her stature as Hannibal discreetly surveyed her legs, fabricating a plausible story for each bruise and abrasion that tainted them. They were unlike any other pair that he has seen in that they were genuine, utilized to their fullest potential and marked by each venture they survived.

Thinner than what the psychiatrist prone to cannibalism would have considered appetizing, her choice in fashion did little to accentuate what modest curves she possessed. Although considering the worn stitching of her skirt, he ascertained that it was purely out of a fiscal verdict and not of appeal. Despite the expanse that separated them, Hannibal could still detect the faint scent of budding flowers and summer peaches that clung to her flesh, an aroma that seemed to embellish her youth and diminish her maturity. And yet, it captivated her innocence with near aptness.

"What occupation are you really aspiring towards?"

His query sliced though the pensive lull with the air of the astute that rested heavily upon Karen's shoulders. She staggered back slightly from their weight, realizing Will's reverence for him to be well placed.

"You have a particular enthusiasm to you, an ardor that brightens your eyes and spills forth into everything that you touch. But it is one that you have convinced yourself to have, to satisfy you for now and to keep you from becoming stagnant and corrupt. It is not what drives you." Revealing no glimmer of reciprocity, no ebbing trace of sentiment, his visage remained vacant as his scrutiny fell effortlessly from his lips, marked only by the void tone of the apathetic. "Do you know what drives you, Miss Bishop?"

He peeled back her defensive layers with a dexterous fluidity that Karen was alarmingly unacquainted with, seizing a glimpse at the timid girl who hid behind them. The young investigative journalist misconstrued it for a taunt, a pragmatic endeavor to restore stability to his conceited vocation. But it was no jocular banter.

It was a warning that fell upon deaf ears.

All at once, the air escaped from Karen's lungs, fleeting from the crippling grasp of her alarm. Forgetting the wretched, autonomic process, she forced herself to take a staggered breath from a room that felt depleted of air. It was so reserved, so covertly intimate and yet he deduced it as if he were merely declaiming verbatim the words from a page. Her refining breath caught within her throat, strangling and scratching as it chocked her, coercing her into stealing another moment to compose herself.

Irresolute of the precise sensation the enigmatic doctor surfaced in her; they entwined, robustly consuming Karen until they left her bewildered as to where she commenced and they ceased. Indisputably, she was enamored by him, infatuated by his magnetic allure and elegant attire as would any fertile female. There was a poised vigor amongst him that Karen found both daunting and mystically heartening. And yet, the slightest trace of trepidation remained to disillusion her depiction of him, to chip away at her entrancement with the fear of what his astute gaze might unveil.

"You have quite an impressive collection of books." The statement registered to her ears as belonging to her own lips and tongue, but she held no recollection of crafting them.

"All the better to change the conversation with," he retorted seamlessly, anticipating her digression as he would as effortlessly as her breaths.

If he were a lesser man, Hannibal would have permitted a lackluster sigh from his ennui. He once held the meekest form of sanguinity that Karen would not hide behind her justifications fabricated by her delusional rationalizations, yet she disheartened him just as the ones before her have.

"I suppose it is," Karen mused, slightly perturbed that she had been coerced into this dialogue with her back against the conversational wall. Nevertheless, she divulged in her furtive whim for something within the affable doctor's staunch façade ebbed away the trepidation to where only trust remained.

"What drives me, Dr. Lecter, is the first desire I have ever had." Tone sounding too callous to her own ears, she allowed it to taper off into an explicable meekness that became weighted by the wary consciousness of their ignorance before continuing. "It is the desire to write and illustrate children's books."

Meticulous by design, Hannibal always possessed an aptitude for comprehending perfection when it made his presence. Which is why he was not surprised to find a cordial smile curling the corners of his lips, for he remained amused by the aptness of her desired vocation. He held no reservations that it would make great use of her zealous naivety and boisterously optimistic persona. And yet, a query remained to taunt such illumination.

"How exactly does a children's author become a tabloid journalist?"

"Why, Dr. Lecter," a coy smirk curled the corners of her lips with an ineptly flirtatious tone wrapped in the subtle escapades of defiance, "are you psychoanalyzing me?" Karen teased flippantly to which Hannibal offered the most courteous of chuckles to, falling flat within its own reverberations. She was appreciative that it was not accompanied by another one of his astute rejoinders, for she earnestly felt that ignorance on this particular matter was indeed bliss.

Despite her jest, she resolved to answer his query, finding it all familiar the desire to part with something in return. "I believe the answer you are searching for is by falling into insatiable amounts of debt. The economy has not been too supportive of young novelists as of late."

"Pity." Hannibal dwelled upon the world, stretching each syllable to its breaking point. There was something lingering just beyond reach behind his response, a subtle little glimmer of an obscured intention that returned to Karen as vacant as it started. The sole remark sent a shiver cascading down the young tabloid journalist's spine that could no longer be ignored despite her vain attempts.

What filled Hannibal's line of vision, he was not entirely pleased by. He dismissed her as being yet another imprudent girl, consumed by her innocence and too young to comprehend the full weight of her words. She wore her faults on her sleeves in the manner of the fervidly candid, despite her best intentions to conceal them.

But Hannibal would not analyze them now. One day he would reward her with what he saw, but not today.

_No_, Hannibal's lips curled delectably upon the deliberation. _She would have to earn it first_.

* * *

**Author's note:**

Gah, Will is so much easier to write! He's like the lost dog that follows you home in the rain. Hannibal, on the other hand, is a charismatic enigma. How do you write an enigma?! Well, I hope I didn't botch up Hannibal too much. Your forgiveness on the matter would be most appreciated.

After that little rant/rationalization, I wanted to take this time, my lovely readers, to thank each and every one of you for the follows, favorites, and reviews. It makes me deliriously happy to receive each one and I will say that I was dangerously close to the point of tears the other days from reading them. I hope I am able to return your kindness with the chapters to come.


	7. Chapter Six

For the first time in a long time, Karen felt comfortable in her own skin. No longer was it the veil by which she concealed herself from the world's meddling gaze, for every part of it now earnestly belonged to her and she pressed herself into every fissure and crevice until she was worn insipidly thin from introspection. Relishing the fresh morning air and its invigorating tribute, she recalled with a dash of nostalgia that this was how it felt to truly be at peace with oneself. Her tranquility and elation extended well passed herself and into every space she occupied, filling every desolate corner with her jubilated reassurance as it chased away the dismal shadows of reservations passed.

The brash mauve of falcate shadows hung impudently from her eyes, brandishing her fatigue for the world to see as a mark that spoke volumes of her long night. But she never raised a somber complaint against them, for the first time in a long time Karen wrote the irrefutable veracity this life still had to offer, though it was veiled by the vices and insatiability of man. Made clandestine by those who wished to purge it from existence, its fading whispers were heard only by the dwindling few, and for once Karen chose to heed them.

It was no easy feat by any stretch of the imagination, for over the past year of working for the Tattler, Karen had developed a tenacious flair for embellishing the truth. Proving to be quite the formidable nemesis, she had stayed up well passed the middle of the night to perfect her first unreservedly ethical editorial. And what a principled account it was. The morality behind her words appeared to fortify the validity each one carried, resonating within the reader's mind as the crystallized voice of clarity and enlightenment.

Taking a blissful moment to savor such unadulterated sentiments of euphoria and nobility in one's work, Karen was practically giddy – a caliber of ecstasy that could have her institutionalized. A smile the shine of which encompassed the sun curled the corners of her lips in their own delight upon the matter as she made her way to her meager excuse for a cubical, offering her sincere bliss to all in her path. It was only reciprocated by the dubiously deranged janitor for her co-workers never believed in consorting with the coffee girl. Her past proceedings had defined her, tainting her in a manner unrecognizable to her for she would forever be branded as their secretary. She had long since been promoted but the belligerent struggle against the dogmatic stigma rages ever as strong.

Her smile withered imperceptibly upon hearing the presumptuous, resonating sound of high heels grating against the linoleum floors – the cries of the blaring horn before the hunt. "Katherine," the brusque tone of Freddie Lounds was extended to an octave teetering on shrill from its haughty inflection.

Refusing to burden herself by attempting to amend her employer's resolute blunders, for she knew a losing battle when she saw one, Karen offered the meekest of smiles to Ms. Lounds. Animosity fading into a vague despondency that felt remarkably hollow to the imprudent girl, she was all too familiar with the caliber of erroneous names her boss was capable of producing and the cycle by which they appeared by. One week she would be deemed Stacey only for it to alter to Alice, Hannah, or even Maria only for the pattern to commence anew. Karen recalled with faint bemusement that she was even once referred to as Barbie by Ms. Lounds's pitiable appraisal. But on further contemplation, perhaps it was only a mock towards her blonde hair, slender physique, and presumed mediocre intelligence and not the masquerading admiration Karen once ascertained it to be. Deliberation aside, Karen was just appreciative that she got the first letter right this time.

Freddie Lounds stood forebodingly over Karen as she remained placid in her economical office chair, her looming shadow falling callously nimble upon the girl's docile frame, rendered suffocating and staggering from the imposing weight. Despite her vain endeavors, Karen never truly feared the unsavory columnist for she knew she could never aspire to be what is in her heart: a respectable journalist. The lust for it lapsed upon her irises, a vibrant cerulean that blazed with the intensity of an ardent flame only to be dimmed a little by each passing day, being ebbed away by the dwindling illusion of eminence she clung to.

The prominence she aspired for would be her early grave and something in Karen's scrupulous persona callously reminded her of her encroaching demise. Never one to idly dismiss a challenge – regardless of if the opponent was aware of the preconceptions of conflict or not – Ms. Lounds fought Karen with every infamous and unscrupulous technique she could fathom.

"I'm giving you the petty crime story at the local convenient store." Her speech was deliberately slow, lingering between each syllable for a calculating pensiveness that never appeared to equal the wit that was intended of them. Fabricated tenderness rested upon counterfeit concern in an entanglement of the melancholy mendacity that flourishes within Ms. Lounds.

A glint in her scrutinizing gaze absorbed the florescent lighting of the space to never reflect it back; a conduct that spoke mildly of her insatiable desire that now craved something else to fill the void it found within. The manner by which the cerulean darkened to an impatient indigo with each passing second suggested the exigency towards the acknowledgment of her benevolence. With such a vast ego, Freddie Lounds fully intended for Karen to produce a string of fervent accolades or even a riveting sonnet or two inspired by her munificence.

"Thank you, Ms. Lounds." Karen's words came out forced upon taut lips pressed into the thin line of belligerence. "I will do my best."

Despite her placid disposition, Karen's heart fluttered hysterically within her chest as the beating of flightless wings against its imprisonment. They fluttered from the most conventional of fears – the apprehension of being rendered translucent in your endeavors. The fear of being caught always seemed to lurk within the monotonous of gestures and was whispered within the accusations left unspoken from blasé glances.

"That's what I like to hear." A feigned candidness coddled by a plagiarized pep-talk resonated within the spaces of her words, threatening to strip the walls of their conventional grey paint with her blatantly patronizing tone. It only expanded upon the curl of her smirk that whispered softly of the conceitedness which it was intentionally derived from.

She was the paper cuts of all tabloid journalists, the bothersome rock in your shoe that pained you with every step, and she took a fiendish delight in reminding Karen of that every day be it with outlandish demands or backhanded compliments.

Karen fully regarded the tactless columnist as she sauntered back to the depth from which she came – a boisterously conceited office space that was rendered her sullen cave in which she savored the ferocity of the morning's fresh kill. Adorned in the gaudy leopard-print of her ancestors, Ms. Lounds presumptuously stalked as the evolved, feline predator before her generation.

Noting that the feline's attention was no longer upon the mouse, Karen stuck out her tongue in a juvenile mock of defiance only to feel tainted by her own odium. The craven columnist was permitted a fleeting moment of composure, a moment filled to the brim with naïve optimism that it would be the end, before the campaign continued by Ms. Lounds's intolerable impositions.

"Oh," the deliberate shrewdness in Freddie Lounds's tone breathed an essence of stagnant corruption into the mundane utterance as she lingered in the door frame to her ostentatious office. Karen concealed her grumbling grievances upon the disruption as an enchanting smile once again painted her visage with its allure, waning slightly from her staggering exasperation towards the woman.

"I read your little article on Will Graham. It was a nice exposé, very . . . _principled_." The malicious word tasted vile upon the tip of her tongue with its righteous morality, vaguely trepid by the antidote that it was to her callous poison. "Such a shame it only got seventeen reads." Derision pierced through the fabricated empathy in her tone, tainting them with subtle crudeness whose faintest of touches scorched Karen. Wisps of umbrage were left by their conquest as they rippled past her to remain as tiny remembrances of her agonizingly docile demeanor.

A conceited elation crafted the smirk that hung wretchedly upon Ms. Lounds's lips, curling back her rum lips to brandish the opalescence of the pristine teeth that dwelled beneath them. The callow girl knew it was no benevolent conduct for the vulture of a woman never smiled.

She only bared her teeth in warning.

Despite the insult, the luminous smile returned to Karen's lips. Unlike Ms. Lounds, Karen excelled in arithmetic and knew quite well the difference – if not blatantly minute – between the numbers seventeen and twelve. The space between them was marked by progress and she relished its admirable grace.

Karen Bishop had Freddie Lounds right where she wanted her – believing the storm to have already passed.

* * *

**Author's Note: **

I'm afraid this chapter was mostly filler, but what else is a girl to do on a dreary Sunday afternoon than to ignore her priorities and post fanfiction.

Also, on a scale from one to ten, how terribly disappointed are you that Able Gideon didn't murder Freddie Lounds?

I'm a definite twelve.


	8. Chapter Seven

The week that followed was perhaps the longest that Karen had ever known, days stretching into trite wisps of time that entangled her in confounding apprehension, prickling the skin as it beleaguered the senses. She could feel each passing second ticking obstinately underneath her skin, deriding her as its cries resonated just beneath the flesh. Entreaties escaped profusely from her sanguine lips like black and white reruns coerced to persistently repeat as they diminished with age and became tarnished by the acerbic air of the aloof. Fashioned at first from a fabricated sense of poised decorum followed by candid ethics and filed down to where only an alacritous earnestness remained, Karen implored Will to vouch for her expertise to Jack only for each appeal to fall deaf upon the special investigator's adamant ears.

Partly out of an obdurate malice for tabloid journalists and more out of sheer ennui, Will continued to provoke the girl to see where this chain of reactions would continue. He was flabbergasted by her resolve that would always be referred to as trifling obstinacy by him, despite his façade never permitting the revealing of such a repugnantly transparent expression. Karen came frantically close to groveling when he finally agreed in an agitated state to converse with Jack. The adept consultant was once again reminded of her whimsical persona as he witnessed a rather copious, enthralling smile stretch Karen's lips to the point of chapping.

Her plan had been a success and once the initial elation had waned away, the poignant sensation of penitence was all that remained. It only escalated upon realizing the grotesque caliber of murders the team investigated.

The call came in at around five in the morning, reverberating impudently in the silence of the night as the shrill beckoning of a siren insolently reminding Karen of work yet to be accomplished. She was the least bit amused, for she sincerely loathed being woken up from such a deep slumber and the imposing exhaustion stretched her tone in the slanted inflection of discontent. It quickly reverted to her placid lexis upon noting the curt tone of an FBI agent on the other end, one who would agree with her that such a repugnantly early time should not exist. Without sparing the time to fix a much desired cup of coffee, Karen hastily departed her apartment only to bashfully realize that she would not be respected in her flannel pajamas and bunny slippers. She sheepishly returned to her room to change into something a bit more sensible and, after much internal debate, she fixed herself that beloved cup of coffee anyway.

Anticipation could practically be heard dripping from her docile disposition as she attempted to conceal her elation towards being deemed dependably veracious by the FBI, knowing her giddiness will only make her appear tactless to her newly appointed colleagues while silently cursing the caffeine coursing throughout her for not helping. Fatigue diminished by the good faith of the prospects that lay ahead, the inept journalist once again strived for a composed, competent demeanor only to fall utterly short as she strolled into the Rising Sun apartment duplex with an imprudent grin.

An apathetic man with a staggering level of copious superciliousness that could very well fill a room stopped her with a scrutinizing glance and calloused palms fashioning an abrupt barrier before her. His hair was greased by a number of styling gels in a manner that appeared almost juvenile on him in attempt to assure himself that he was not aging, only becoming wiser. His pompous gaze that still held an obdurate connotation of ennui rendered her into a meager record of her more appealing physical characteristics – a mere piece of meat to be chewed on as he pleased – and yet dismissed her all within the same gaze.

His pretentiousness could be heard palpably in his tone as they fashioned his bigoted speech, burdening each syllable with his lecherous thoughts that overwhelmed the now vaguely revolted journalist as she stifled an urge to grimace. "Careful, sweetheart," the patronizing drawl in his speech fashioned it as disparagement, but a lewd incitement of succumbing to vices sauntered too from his chauvinistic smirk. "It's pretty gruesome in there."

Despite the small piece of odium she reserved specially for such transparently sexist males, Karen was ever present with her earnest and amiable etiquette. "I appreciate the warning, but murder is always gruesome," she retorted cogently with a diminutive smile tightening on its arduous pleasantries that radiated down through her stiff and rigid posture.

It earned her a listless shrug but he reluctantly retreated, leaving Karen to continue her pace with an exultant beam. From the distance his disdained remonstration no louder than an abrupt murmur called to her, cursed to forever search for the doting attention he never received as a child as it rang insolently with a scorned tone that seemed to add to the distance between them.

"She's not nearly as attractive as she thinks she is."

The vindictive affront stung in a manner only the words of a discarded male's could, triggering the niggling insecurities that all women carry at one point in their lives. Karen's feeble and vulnerable skin already blistered by the insults of other FBI agents and their consultants, refused to house yet another and simply let it graze past her as an offense left unheard. Despite the gnawing inadequacies that now besmirched her regard, Karen raised her head with a fabricated sense of self-assurance as she was becoming accustomed to the brash customs and unadorned methods of law enforcement.

"She's the one who turned you down," the flippancy of a female's cadence raised the edges of her dissent cunningly to the fine point of a blade, annunciating her brash reviler with a pensive smirk. "What do you think that says about you?"

_Perhaps there is some redeeming quality towards law enforcement after all_, Karen mused with a demure smirk as she inadvertently opened the door to a whole new world, plunging head first down the inconceivable rabbit hole.

The poignant aroma of fresh bereavement besieged her and stripped from her the faint elation that was left lingering upon her in trite wisps of optimism, forever encasing it in the past as to not be opened by her whims again. It forced the air form her lungs in a shallow, tattered breath of a gasp as she fought the quivering within her stomach to no avail.

Daunting sputters of blood tainted the once soft cream of the carpet, imposing upon them an act of deranged ardor that would never be cleansed from their fibers. A scalded crimson liquid dripped from the walls in the fabrication of a pulsating life force, personifying them in their thrashing dismay. A sanctuary once occupied by the clandestine moments of a life shared in marriage was reduced to a withered remembrance of an amorous home by the incriminating scarlet hues and odious brutality of murder that ransacked this dwelling, subduing any waning felicity that lingered in the shelter of shadows.

It was not Karen's first time being exposed to a corpse, but the way they were maliciously mutilated and malevolently maimed could have deceived even her sensory memory. They were no longer the remnants of sentient humans, but the twisted adaptations of unfathomable terrors that crawled and slithered from every child's nightmares.

Arms were bent at inhuman angles, visibly fractured in a series of interjecting breaks that remained petrified and rigid in fatality. Legs were contorted in ostensibly impossible ways and where there were once continues lines that only curved tenderly at the swell of joints; only jagged breaks and splinters of flesh, muscle, and bone remained. Thin ribbons of supple tissue were removed to observe fractured bones peering out from behind the muscles that once enclosed them. Shoulders were dislocated only to be pushed back in at erroneous angles, never returning to what was natural. Heads – a single male and female – were twisted backwards and from open mouths with lips curled by the edge of a blade dangled tongues that were forked as droplets of blood rained down like the igniting sparks of a flame.

But that was not what truly frightened Karen.

Shimmering in the breaking dawn of a new day, emerging rich with fabricated verve was a thin crescent line of obsidian encased in rusted amber that glistened with a demonic nature. Crafted by the nostalgia of a childhood that now seemed tainted and vile was a pair of crude cat-eye marbles protruding from sockets that once housed vivacious eyes. With the return of a crippling fright, Karen watched feebly as they followed her every trembling, tentative move and shaken breath that rattled her timid frame with the anguished cries of the damned. They glinted and refracted in her craven gaze, whispering tacit mocks towards her trepid demeanor as they feasted gluttonously upon her terror.

Blood running cold within her veins by the distress of the grotesque scene before her, Karen could hear the distinct sound of the sanguine world that once made sense to her shatter at her feet, her own sympathy chocking her from what it could not comprehend. By the scrutinizing glower Jack saw fit to demean her with, she knew her abhorrent shock was well apparent to the others.

The rest of the investigators with their cynical walls and impenetrable mentalities to the malevolent tribulations of this world knew that this was no place for one as trepid and naïve as Karen as their presumptions resided to trace their snide dispositions and impetuous smirks. Circumspectly from the prudent corners of their eyes and with sideway glances, they scrutinized her, counting down the seconds towards her inevitable fleeing with projected glee. As was callous tradition with any new addition to the team – "fresh blood" being the agreed upon tasteless name – a betting pool had been passed around the offices in an attempt to predict the duration of her stay which were all remarkably diminutive in accordance with their wanton drollness. So far their disgruntled glowers and derided gripes suggested it was not as easy money as they had intended it to be.

Bile languidly crept up Karen's throat, scorching such sensitive tissue as it dug its serrated claws into her in a manner that refused to be disregarded. With inert obstinacy, Karen ineptly endeavored to conceal her gag reflex in a stifling cough that was blatantly perceptible to the trained professionals, compelling a contempt scoff resonating with their confirmed preconceptions from the callously astute Will and Jack.

Despite the mutual connection the two previously shared, Will relinquished such sentimental connotations that muddled his verdict and labored his visage with abhorrent expressions as he relapsed to his inherent state of adamant apathy. Thus he scrutinized the girl free from reciprocity and any lingering desires to liberate or protect her, falling back on jeers and ridicule to further distance himself from her and to fortify his crumbling walls.

His tepid actions only reminded her of the extent to which she was not welcomed – a coerced indulgent that brought them all together but would not bend their ears to her bloody harp of a proclamation. Regardless of her trembling frame and the vast sense of flight that trounced her sense of fight and beseeched her reasoning to flee, Karen remained resolute in the room with her tenacity refusing to permit her rivals the benefit of defining her by her craven nature.

Her somber gaze swept back over the trace remnants of corpses that were no longer human, mind laden and made listless by imposing thoughts as to what caliber of a demented mind or manic fury could possible provoke someone to commit such a heinous act. There was something palpably feral in them – something primeval that has been forsaken by evolution. Unconsciously, her gaze traveled back to the chipped teal nail polish that adorned the female's nails, brutishly reminding Karen with inexorable waves of nausea that this dismal lump of meat and bone was once a person much like her.

Visibly paler than what she started with, Karen forced the trepidation back down her throat to where it taunted her from deep within with derisive laughter and disparaging ridicule that rendered her into nothing more than a timorous child. She resolved to her writing instruments, recording every minute detail in order to remain ardently preoccupied and keep any encroaching morbid thoughts at bay. When it became apparent that she would not be adding to the indiscretion of the macabre massacre by capturing them in unsavory pictures, the team faintly relaxed towards her presence, a subtle note of reassurance that smoothed their callous dispositions.

However, it did not quell one intrusive man and his inquires to which she riposted with a petite smile that was a meager shadow of its once whimsical nature, "Violence does not cease violence. It only provokes it." Unable to fully comprehend their semantics, the now dubious man was not entirely sure what was meant by her decisively cryptic response. Nevertheless, he no longer pestered her with his insatiable queries.

She had gumption, an unspoken audacious essence that even Jack had to reluctantly admit to observing. But it did little to sway his verdict of the vivacious girl prattling on about her naïve whims, for the dark corner of the world that breathed life into his occupation had no use for her sanguine propositions. Never one to fully trust what he could not classify and marginalize by perceptive terms, the scowl that seemed to be tenaciously etched upon Jack's austere countenance only expanded upon the sight of her.

"Nearly every bone was broken in the victims' bodies." The brusque tone returned to the supercilious man whose vindictive affront still resonated impudently in Karen's ears. What little pleasantries existed in the minute absences of his ego and self-proclaimed alluring wit were now eradicated by the somberness and solemnity of his scrutiny. "Most of them occurred antemortem, with the exception of the neck and the carving of the face."

"There were no fatal wounds. The victims' hearts just gave out," a distinctly aged male interjected with a perplexed shrug, seemingly blasé if not vaguely amused by the sight stretched out before him.

"They actually died of fright?" Karen inquired incredulously with ample ingenuous eyes, never fathoming such a dismissed fallacy to hold any validity.

The vile hum of a curt silence resonating stridently within the flat din of a discomfited tension was all that responded to her query. Gazes wavering between aggrieved gaucheness and firm subordination fell in an acrimonious brutality upon her, irresolute if they were permitted to consort with Jack's proclaimed adversary. A raucous glower from an officious special agent Crawford callously berated without words that she was invited out of courtesy. A civility that could extend as short as the exit if she possessed the audacity to intrude again. A faint perturbation now etching itself into burdening layers upon her docile frame, profound and gradually vanquishing the once crippling grasp of her timid demeanor, Karen's gaze remained resolute – if not sullen – upon her notes.

Relinquishing the rancorous discord as she had done previously, a boisterously presumptuous Asian woman interjected with the same astute cadence from the hallway. "There were unusually high serotonin levels in the female. He might have taken his time with her." She spoke with a certain unobstructed ease as her analysis fell fluently from her lips, astoundingly liberated from emotions or sentiments that would have slanted her incisive perception.

Her assessment sparked a zealous dispute amongst her forensic scientist colleagues, quarrelling rather conservatively with subtle connotations of juvenile, vindictive rebuttals for each one of their meticulously constructed presumptions. Karen felt faintly revolted by their conduct that was so void of distress and commiseration, suggesting this was all just a riveting diversion to them. She shuddered at the concept of how many murders it took for each one to renounce such a rudimental shred of their humanity, a piece of their innate empathy, and to erect their walls of thorns and glass around their hearts. In a remarkable twist of fate, she felt pity for them knowing that they had erroneously traded some part of their compassion for a bleak chance of protection ruefully disguised as a defense mechanism. With fear beginning to cloud her mind again, she wondered how many crime scenes it would take for her to lose herself to it too. With immense effort, Karen dismissed the depraved thought from her mind, resolving to never forsake the very compassion that defined her regardless of the stigma of naivety it burdened her with.

"I wanted to show her what she married," Will murmured in a timbre that sounded abnormally distant from his lips, derived from a more daunting enigma than his own.

Despite the whisper of a breath it was constructed from, the room stilled as time itself seemed to pause for his consideration. Feeling their insatiably inquisitive deliberation prickling upon him, his head ineptly bobbed up and down in an earnest assurance, not knowing what other conduct to display as he reverted to his gauche idiosyncrasies. "Uh, he . . ." Will's feeble tone waned from the confounding gravity of his analysis, dubious as to what he saw behind close eyes. Slowly it softened to that of a whisper, faintly shaken by the weight of his words. "He made her watch." A discomfited smile painted by his formidable empathy curled the corners of his lips in a perfunctory manner, his mind already beginning to twist and wither by the vile atrocities that filled it.

A bewildered silence fell upon each member of the room, crashing inexorably upon each rapt silhouette as Will's gaze passed shrewdly over the bodies, absorbing the grotesque details that were well passed his capacity. Eyes that were once so vapid awoke to rancorous ire and repulsion entwining within the cerulean hues that fashioned them, hardening them to a vile indigo glare as he witnessed what fell beyond everyone's comprehensive grasp of madness. The repugnance visibly rippled through him, washing over his once wary frame to collect within the nerves of his fingertips, twitching them in agitation and preparation of what was to come. A fretful compassion compelled Karen's feet to stagger closer to the broken man, but a raucous glare from Jack froze her in her place, brutishly reminding her not to intervene.

From a tone that was a whisper of what it once was, a shadow left to dance in the midnight of his mind, Will once again was taken hold by his reconstructions, rendered nothing more than a tool to fit its design. "This is not what you pretend to be. This is what you are." Sullen words escaped from lips twisted by their derange preconceptions of indignation. A vacant shell was what remained as a lingering trace of Will, preserving his physic but so somnolent by what he saw that trembling fatigue rendered him lesser than what he truly was, something minuscule and unmemorable that would fade with the changing wind.

"Now the world can see you for what I can." Jagged words breaking from his ire fell deftly upon the floor, collecting into the haunting reverberations of deranged laughter before his tone revealed his true animosity in a whisper that not even the wind would carry. "Monsters."

Will's lips contorted and twisted into a malicious smirk that lapsed upon the dwindling edges of his sanity. The darkness that filled his mind seeped through his morose gaze, dulling the cerulean within by wisps of foreboding malice that tainted everything it touched with premonitions lurking just beyond the perceptive corners of your eyes. As quickly as it came, it was dismissed with an idle blink – such a deliberate, autonomic function that was transfixed into something greater than itself. Reverting back to the gauche demeanor that defined Will Graham, the slow sweeping ache of remorse collected into the finer lines of his visage to dwell upon this new deliberation. Gasping, he struggled for a cleansing breath that would rid him of the malicious carnage that he witnessed behind closed eyes.

Unadulterated concern and an assiduous dash of alarm blistered Karen's thoughts as her innocent gaze fell upon the special investigator. Wondering if perhaps he was shattering after all, she ineptly scrutinized him as a mere fraction of his own adeptness, shrewdly scanning his façade for cracks that enticed a peek within. Trepidation tainting her torpid thoughts, stretching them callously to the point of breaking with emerging anticipation, Karen winced as she caught a portentous glimpse of something new and ambiguous lingering just beyond her gaze. It slithered wretchedly passed muscle and bone where it was left to hiss and coil around the heart as a plague left to deprave the flesh and contaminate the mind. The corpses laid forgotten by her as her mind began to gradually ebb away the enigma that is Will Graham.

"Stop thinking!" Will's imposing demand was raised dourly to throttle the probing scrutiny that Karen unleashed rattling throughout his skull like jangling keys. She flinched noticeably from his booming tone that cracked like lightening, scattering the wild fires of animosity that distorted the lines and edges contouring his façade until it hardened callously upon her gaze.

Hands made trembling by his own trepidations and antipathy circled his temples vigorously, pushing back his unruly tresses to purge his mind from the vile din that interrupted the coherency of his reconstruction. "I can _feel_ you thinking." Emphatic with such a callous tone resting on vulgar animosity that scorched what little patience he kept for the girl, Will laced the word with such animated acrimony that stretched him to the juvenile point of transparency, left to reverberate in the lines of his scowl.

Karen bit back her own annoyance to reveal a placid tone forced from a taut smile, curled by a candid and cordial conduct. "What do you want me to do?"Despite her grievances with the way he reduced her presence to a trifling entity, her sentiments were earnest and demure as she only wished to help in any way possible.

However, she was not anticipating the next demand that fell from Will's lips.

"Leave." Will dismissed her with an adamant gesture of the hands, a perturb tone falling heavy upon the floor with exasperation as his movements became jagged and sporadic with the sways of his flustered infuriation. His speech was becoming as incoherent and errant as his thoughts as they jumped and zigzagged to the new melody of capricious rattling. "I don't care where . . . Just be anywhere but here. . . The hallway – wait in the hallway."

What exasperation she once carried melted upon hearing the paltry immaturity of the avowal. Karen laughed flippantly with all the invigorating hues of a warm summer – a conduct neither of them expected. Will momentarily ceased his flustered movements to fix a perplexed glance upon her, void of his characteristic astuteness as he regarded such a bewildering anomaly.

"You remind me of my nephew," she replied blithely, the saccharine savor of a cleansing rain in the stagnant room that fashioned her jest from a profound sanguine nature within. "He knows how to throw a tantrum too."

Her gaze passed over his in an enthralling taunt, an enticement to jocular banter that defined acquaintances on the cusp of friendship to which he blatantly refused as he averted his attention. Realizing that she had perhaps overstayed her welcome based on the gravity of Will's scowl, ever deepening as it collected upon the epitome of his disdain, Karen reluctantly relented.

With a delicate smile that spoke whimsically of her subtle defiance, the young columnist spoke in a composed tranquil tone well beyond her years. "I'll be in the hall if you need me."

"Can't imagine what for." Will muttered with all the scorned contempt that lurked within the dwindling sanity of his mind, childishly desiring the last word as thoughts became transfixed into appalling prophecies despite how vigorously he rubbed his eyes.

The visage that stared forebodingly back at him from behind the outstretched arms of the broken and the damned was that of Karen's. Marked by insipid flesh stretched thin over her docile features and eyes wide with a vibrant verdant that reflected poignant wisps of fear left to cry out in the darkest of nights, she was the personified trepidation of a child. With such excruciating sorrow, Will remorsefully knew what frightened her. And it was not the carnage that lurked before them.

Karen's amble noticeably stiffened from the offense, but she did not retaliate. She departed elegantly from the room with all the poised grace of a decorous woman, silently appreciative to be away from the departed. And when she was safe from prying glances in the hallway, Karen Bishop sulked with all the fervor and sophistication of a toddler coerced to sit in timeout.


	9. Chapter Eight

Karen rested her head austerely against the hallway's implacable wall, throbbing from the brusque contact as imposing tedium lingered over her pique disposition, entwining with her trepidation that began to wane with her proximity from the macabre crime scene. Muse's tune of "madness" played crassly in her mind, resonating out of tandem with the rise and fall of her staggering breaths. The fretful trembling had subsided, but not the lurid images. They held on with an obstinacy greater than her own as they haunted her every time she closed her eyes.

Idle fingers raked against the scalp in a manner that feigned consoler and reassurance as her hands cradled the despair contained within her distraught head. An untimely demise fashioned by repugnancy and graced by vile distortions beleaguered her mind, dancing impishly behind closed eyes that withered from the callous florescent lights only to be cultivated once again in the idyllic darkness of her blinks. Contorted and inert in death, her brazen imagination breathed fictitious life into the corpses that chastised and taunted her with the impious tyranny of an inexorable mortality, haunting her behind every corner of her fleeing mind as impious eyes stalked her behind her own.

_I wanted to show her what she married_.

The recollection perforated tersely through her mind with the disdainful tone filled with ire that spilled forth upon everything Will Graham touched, scorching and admonishing that which had the audacity to fall in its path. Evan as it passed beyond the space of its utterance, remnants of it lingered as fragments of his antipathy intonation, reverberating within her reservations as the premonition of madness.

_MA, MA, MA, MA, MA, MA, MA, MA, Mad. Mad. Mad – Oh, shut up! _

She cringed from their solemn finality and frantically cradled her head once more, futilely wishing to purge them from her mind entirely but they refused in a manner that was beyond her own feeble clout.

Contracted muscles rippled underneath crawling skin upon the aspect that perhaps it was not the vile avowal itself that beset her but the vicarious investigator who had articulated it with such mad disparagement. She could feel the emerging part of her that was beginning to harbor apprehension towards the broken man, swimming within her as a depraved, cancerous entity that daunted her with menacing premonitions of ire: a primitive fear of what could not be comprehended. It was a part that would not be quelled by her frail entreaties and insufferable beseeching. She dismissed it with fervor haste, knowing such imprudent trepidation would only bring about her premature demise as it intertwined with her earnest compassion, fashioning something novel that would soon engulf her with its inexorable tribulations and callous endeavors.

Despite the stigma her exultantly naïve conceptions burdened her with, Karen possessed a certain level of veteran perspicaciousness – a sort of sixth sense that she had valiantly earned by her enduring forbearance. It forewarned her against letting her conceit reign in place of diplomatic prudence, for an act of premeditated defiance against Will Graham now would be to unreservedly and unremittingly attenuate her assiduous efforts. An imprudent endeavor she wanted no part in thank you very much.

Defined by a sanguine optimism that has become tarnished by adamant assertions of naivety, Karen knew she could not simply relinquish such an idiosyncratic attribute of her life now, for it dwelled within the vivacious verdant of her eyes flagrantly and barefaced for all to see. With all the obdurate resolve her twenty-seven years have granted her with, the self-proclaimed ethical columnist vowed to assist Will by any means necessary despite the emerging pestilence of trepidation she now carried for the chipped teacup of a man. Not entirely convinced that her particular – and not all together in the past – skill set of vice and deception would fall in accordance with the special investigator's needs, Karen remained optimistically adamant on her prospect of unadulterated and earnest amity. For the naïve journalist with blistering romanticized notions of confidence and camaraderie believed that if anyone was in dire need of a friend, it was that obdurately morose man. . . She just wasn't entirely sure of her methods yet. So far he had been tenaciously apathetic towards all of her benevolent propositions.

An exasperated and overly aggrandized sigh entwined with her pungent dejection as it fell from her lips, tainting the air with its perturbed connotations of tribulation as she rested her head against the wall once more, wincing faintly from the contact. What dwindling poise she had that was compelled by her tenacious resolve would no longer sanction the grievances of brooding over incidents that best remained in the past. Enticing a benign smile to embellish the curve of her lips, the elegance of an apt stance reunited with Karen on accord with her fabricated sense of self-assurance and her tenacity to evolve from being a passive entity. If claim to Will Graham's affable trust is what she desired, then she knew she could not simply sit here and sulk with all the sophisticated grace and fervor of a chastised child.

However, as the seconds passed agonizingly languid under her adamant skin that seemed to carry away a lifetime, tedium grew daunting as it immersed Karen with tantalizing propositions of enthralling that which has become jaded. Whispering in her ears enticing prospects that became harder to refute, her gaze remained pertinacious upon her notes, scanning and searching them for an erudite pattern best used to redeem her standing with Will and his fellow colleagues. Such vigor was concocted purely out of wishful thinking for Karen knew she did not possess the intellectual rumination to solve such a heinous massacre investigation. Convoluted expressions of anatomy, psychology, and criminology peered back at her vacantly from the pages of recoded conversations scattered about her crisscrossed legs, provoking no insight into her layman perspective as they taunted her with a sagacious nature far beyond her own – _what the hell is serotonin anyways?_ Needless to say, Karen was properly flummoxed. Regardless of her dubiously mediocre mental standing and the impending waves of nausea she felt upon recalling the contorted corpses, Karen mulishly continued her studies with an unrelenting vigor.

Profound deliberation dawned upon her visage, the epitome of tenacious pensiveness as her nose scrunched up in a fervor that one man found perplexingly whimsical, if not vaguely tedious. Despite his attempts to engage her with unobtrusive clearings of the throat that ensued into audible coughs with the passage of time, the inept journalist would not be distracted from the notes that were far from her torpid comprehension. Vaguely perturbed by her naïve ignorance and her impertinent dismissal, wisps of waning ire collected into the fine lines that etched the corners of his eyes, trailing down to rest upon the edges of his lips, perched rueful as they dragged them down to the slightest curve of a grimace. They were suavely dismissed by the reemergence of his cordial forbearance that refined his countenance into the vapid visage a man of his sagacious stature was accustomed to.

Void of sentiment as the apathy smoothed its fluidity and purged it from the grace of time, his voice rose mildly to vocalize his presence as if not to disturb the columnist's universe. "Miss Bishop," a tone enriched by a foreign enunciation that continued to elude her rang with such decisive precision in the air, knowing all too well its vital assessment as it occupied the space between them with the restrained intonation of non domineering supremacy. A shiver cascaded down her vertebra upon hearing her own name entwined with such an alluring accent, despite the temperate vexation that weighed it to the succumbing earth.

A blasé glance acknowledge her abrupt awareness as a delicate blush tinted the alabaster of Karen's lofty cheekbones upon noting the subtle twinge of impatience to Hannibal's fraudulent reassuring tone. Discomfiture wafted aguishly over her demur disposition, comprehending the gravity of her discourtesy as she marveled at just how long the affable doctor was standing there. With faint bemusement she realized that he was the caliber of man that could remain elusive in a room; disregarded until he saw fit to approach like a veiled predator on the prowl.

Soft with its cordial decorum as if to appear a clandestine whisper between two companions that was tainted by a subtle tacit of apathy, Hannibal spoke in a manner that continued to enamor Karen if only with a peaked interest to decipher the origin of his speech. "I would have assumed your place to be alongside Will."

_You and me both, doctor_. Karen was regretful to find a touch of acrimony plaguing her usual civil thoughts, weighing each syllable with an animosity she was unaware she possessed.

A scoff escaped from her insubordinate lips and fell wretchedly in the room, tainting the convivial air that stood between them with its boisterous conceit while threatening to rip apart the walls with its acrimonious inclinations. Karen's hand rose sharply to her lips as if to take it back, flustered that she let such a moment of exasperation besmirch her usual effervescent and benevolent demeanor.

Fluent in her perturbed and rather animated gestures that spoke volumes to his adroit gaze, Hannibal waited with resolved equanimity that was sullied by a touch of jadedness for her illumination upon the matter. Autonomic thoughts of blatant lies spilled forth from the corners of her mind where they were kept hidden from conscious thought, beseeching her to remain concealed behind her veils of deception. Searching fretfully about the room for something to alter the conversation with, Karen was dejected to only find the sea shell pattern that adorned the walls. She was skeptical that she would be able to sustain an entire conversation with such a tedious focal point.

Nevertheless, with the immaculate grace of acumen that was perhaps just initial enamor, Karen believed she could trust his staunch visage once again. After all, it was highly plausible that his astute gaze had already deduced the truth from her languid mind. The desire for her to express them into words was perhaps just a formality to assure those on the other side of his canny gaze that they still had a shred of autonomy in the manner.

"Apparently I think too loudly." Perturbed words tumbled meekly from her mouth with lips wavering between a grimace and a bemused smile. They tasted repugnantly inane and of dry metal to her as they refused to resonate with her whimsical persona. Wishing not to display her emerging disparage, she rested her speech upon jocular connotations that spilled forth a matter of inept mirth. "Is there any type of therapy for that, Doctor?"

Ever one to be molded by her rather austere experiences, Karen braced herself for the deriding laughter that was to surly come. Congenial wisps of revelation painted her visage with its startling epiphanies upon always finding its absence while in the good doctor's presence. Others had mocked her, even evolving to the point of palpable contempt, but such berating laughter of scorn never fell from the affable doctor's lips, even after he learned of her eccentric and possibly folly dream of a vocation. Vaguely, Karen was aware that she was just a withered speck in a sea of turgid enthrallment to the adept psychiatrist, lost beneath the ever-changing tidal waves that refined his visage to impassive glass. But despite this shrewd realization, she found his blasé glances reassuring for they were not marked by the visceral odium of what could not be comprehended.

A cordial chuckle parted from his lips; one as stiff as his proficient persona yet it gently ebbed away her trepidation until a rapturous beam remained. Despite the merriment such a response was entitled to, mirth was free from even the faintest of lines that adorned his visage upon ascertaining her to be trifling servile. His countenance remained as smooth as rain tinkling down the glass of a window in a winter's storm, perplexingly vapid while issuing a wafting persona of inconspicuous dominance and a beguiling disposition. Appearing the sagacious essence of refinement in his three peace suit of lush mahogany hued silk and pristine, flaxen hair combed impeccably back, Karen permitted the stray thought to cultivate in her mind as she wondered if anything could rile the doctor into such an astonishing conduct of gaucheness. She even had the audacity to believe that not even the morbid scene behind those doors could crack his meticulously constructed person suit.

Supple lips parted to the flow of velvet words, fluid with charisma and pragmatic wit, entwining under an alluring inflection that left the attention of the world hanging upon his every articulated syllable. "Will is never without his temperament. I suspect it derives from his exhaustion." Subtle traces of fabricated dynamic concern were left to rationally linger within the spaces of his words and upon his calculated countenance, drawing upon his visage in a manner that aged him beyond his years. "These malicious crime scenes take a greater toll on him than he is willing to admit." They were no act of credulous confidence but prudent words read verbatim from a script that continued to elude Karen as she regarded the deft psychiatrist with new found reverence.

His astute glance soaked her in listlessly, absorbing every animated sentiment and veiled deliberation left to sway behind the innocent glint within her eyes with the shrewd, languid pace of his visceral superiority. With ennui returning to weigh upon his contemplation, straining all thoughts as his perspicacious gaze returned back to him discontented yet again by what filled his line of vision. He still found the naive journalist despondently prosaic, as construed by his subtle apathetic features that were veiled behind an innate cordial etiquette and a trite smile whose grace stopped at the definitive points of his lips, never intending to reach his vapid eyes. An aberrant wisp of amusement had the impudence to cross his mind as he observed her sitting in the hallway pouting as a child in timeout. It was left to wither by the stroke of time as the comparison was all too palpable and became yet another tedious thing in his presence left to bore him with idle monotony. He remained standing above the callow columnist and all her naïve splendor, faintly asserting his rapacious dominance in a symbolic manner that nibbled feebly in the back of her mind before she utterly disregarded it.

Lids heavy with encroaching exhaustion fell upon her weary eyes as she closed them momentarily as contemplated the gravity of his analysis only to be greeted crudely by vile images of distorted and contorted corpses. Her eyes fluttered open on their own accord, empathizing perfectly harmoniously with Will's quandary and timidly trepid that they might become her own in time.

"And that's when he calls you," Karen mused about the good doctor's presence, inflection falling softly upon her deliberation. Her tone carried her innocence adeptly, seeping into each syllable as it spun them into soft spindles of gold left to match the value of the man's ego. "He certainly respects you." She appeared to have made a rather curious discovery as her head tilted fondly to the left with her emerging deliberation.

"And I him." The confession came effortlessly to him, yet flippant in some way as it was strikingly void of sentiment. It was left to entwine brazenly with the monotony of the hallway as idle words read from a book.

She regarded the sagacious psychiatrist as she would an enigma that all the world's scrutiny could never be made to comprehend and Hannibal felt the fragile twinge of his stroked ego from the tacit accolade. The adept doctor before her was so close with his eloquently crafted speech, yet his superior intellect imposed itself upon the space between them, stretching and lengthening it to where he felt tremendously distant and only the faintest sensation of his discerning silhouette remained to lapse upon Karen's scantiness. It continued to entice him with proclamations of enthralling jaded nerves to a place Karen knew she could never be made to follow. The ethical tabloid journalist felt remarkably inadequate whenever she conversed with him and it did not help that he was pleasantly forbearing and charitable with her. For reasons unbeknownst to even her, she shuddered at the abrupt epiphany with sudden visceral fretfulness towards a concept of him that she would not be able to comprehend.

_Monsters._

The vile word rattled abruptly throughout Karen's skull, resonating dexterously within the empathic dour of Will's enunciation. She recoiled from its imposing presence and forced it from her mind in frantic hope that the doctor had not witnessed such a vulnerable moment.

Naturally, it was not so.

Inquiry filled his once blasé gaze as his pensive intellect seeped into the deepest maroon that stippled the russet within his eyes, crackling to life in a manner she could have sworn was pulsating like a heartbeat. A fragile sense of amusement flickered somewhere deep within him, but it dared not possess the audacity to lapse upon his apathetic visage. Hannibal remained adamant in his view that nothing in this world possessed the enticing savor quite like the delicate flair of the tormented soul. Fiendish delight wafted over him upon the prospect of one wandering so close to him wiling. All that remained of his insatiable appetite was a malice curl of the lips that expressed affableness and not their implicit iniquitous intentions.

His gaze was upon her with its staggering scrutiny, postulating her clandestine intentions behind her words and their underlining connotations of maturity. Karen avoided it, feeling a bit unnerved by the way he seemed to crumble her walls effortlessly with a mere glance. Realizing how utterly imprudent she must appear, not to mention bearing a striking resemblance to Will, she resolved to look him straight in the eyes, an endeavor that proved to be rather formidable as time passed.

His voice was almost taunting with a slight grace of chastisement for being too transparent as it fell flat to his perceptive tone. "Are you hoping that I will divulge in my secret, Miss. Bishop?"

The delicate trace of a sheepish grin embellished the curve of Karen's lips as she constructed her analysis with a calculated composure that seemed aberrant to her unadulterated compassionate disposition. She enunciated each syllable in such a languid pace to where they reverberated synthetically with candid deliberation. "You of all people should know how Will doesn't like someone prying into his personal life – or just his life for that matter." Karen added hastily, her brow knitted together with contemplation and garish compassion. "Despite your occupation, the two of you appear to be quite friendly."

A frolicsome smile curled upon her lips, inviting Hannibal to join its flippant nature as she began to ponder the many, and rather ostentatiously fictitious, possibilities towards such an occurrence. A mischievous glint appeared in her eyes as it captivated her heart's youth, tarnishing her jest. "Hypnosis, perhaps?" Karen inquired in a facetious tone stretched to transparency by its inept jocular nature, but there was an ardent dash of wonder that truly suspected him of the act.

Hannibal's lips quirked into a taut smile, derided upon his inconspicuous disdain towards the inane comment that hummed with a tedious frivolity inside his mind. So fervently flippant by nature, now she was rendered into nothing more than an inept child whose eyes widened at the prospect of a magic trick. It was all so frivolous to the refined psychiatrist that had forsaken such idle follies when he left the child behind him.

"Nothing quite as ostentatious, I'm afraid. I simply did not give him an alternative on the matter." His tone was insipidly thin; vacant of all sentiment as his diplomatic etiquette was all that remained to fortify his courteous demeanor.

The thin line of her lips pursed upon the confidence, contrasting against her demur disposition. It painted decorous yeas to her petulant visage with its wide strokes of deliberated acumen as she contemplated the potential benefits it provided her with. Hannibal could almost hear the faint clicks of her thoughts being processed leisurely like the typing of a computer. He savored the fine delicacy that was her distress, relishing its amiably saccharine tang that wafted upon the senses like a cream made to compliment its stout undertones of bitterness and dejection. The essence of prosy that had blatantly defined her character upon their first encounter began to fade by thin wisps of amusement as Hannibal feasted upon the subtle glimmer of anguish that tainted the naïve innocence in her sanguine eyes. Perhaps that was what had loosened his lips to the counsel that followed:

"And neither should you."

They fell light upon her ears with a tone rendered vapid of any recognizable sentiments as its absence was left to be filled by his astute ambiance that resonated deeply within all intellectual minds. They were such simple words that were crafted into a greater existence by the mere wake of his pensive intellect. They captivated her unreservedly, rendering her into a kind of stupor as she weighed their connotations upon her languid mind. The aroma of her innocence wafted from her once more, flooding his mouth with its melancholy taste of vibrant summers that left him cynically nostalgic for what he could not recall.

All at once, the congenial curves and lines that fashioned her blithe countenance danced merrily upon the return of her exuberantly effervescent persona as she savored his astoundingly benevolent advice. It was not so much the benign words themselves but what was left unspoken, wavering within the spaces of its significance as a tacit form of deference for the ethical tabloid journalist.

"Thank you, Dr. Lecter." She expressed adamantly and earnestly while an enchanting smile curled the corners of her lips to the point of chapping, elated by the arbitrary act of munificence that restored her profound sanguine faith.

Hannibal merely provided her with a terse nod that was such a fluid movement rendered into something faintly stiff by his cordial disposition before slipping past her and into the macabre room of horrors. He was vaguely appreciative to be rid of her trifling and boisterously naïve presence, and yet the faintest twinge of inquisitiveness seized him as he postulated just how Karen would perceive his advice.

* * *

Karen Bishop was nearly home when the sickness struck.

The pungent, acidic air of bleach was not enough to entice the vile stench of vomit into submission as she expelled her absent stomach of what few contents it had. The acerbic aroma stung her eyes, compelling them to water as she felt the scorching sensation the bile left her as it passed callously through her throat.

Images of contorted corpses inexorably haunted her. With every fatigue laced blink, they waited to remind her of a macabre world she hid from with feeble denial. She pulled the lever of the soiled toilet with trembling hands and watched the contents of her last meal swirl away along with the morning's dismay. They were harder to push from her mind than the others, but she managed with the same tenacity one special investigator referred to as trifling obstinacy.

She knew this new position was entangled with sinister prophecies of appalling mental disorders and the red tape of macabre murders, but they could follow it straight to hell. Nothing in her English degree covered fucking _marbles_ in eye sockets!

_What a terrible way to start the day. _Such jocular connotations were tainted by the undertones of chastisement for her slip in a composed conduct.

In a sickening moment of introspected clarity, she recognized the insipidly alabaster and frail girl in the mirror with wide, terror rimmed eyes to be herself. Karen detested seeing such a feeble sight if only for a glimpse. With fretful adamancy, she wiped away the trepid filled tears that adorned her cheeks, deluding herself into believing that they would be her last.

In that repugnant instant of nausea, she gained a bit of introspection that fortified her resolve. As she left the neglected gas station's bathroom, Karen Bishop was stronger than the woman who first entered.

* * *

**Author's Note:**

Confusticate and bebother this loathsome editing! . . . That is all.


End file.
